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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY ORIENTAL STUDIES 
Vou. XVIII 


The Chronicle of Ahimaaz 


TRANSLATED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 


By 
MARCUS SALZMAN, Pu.D. 





New Bork 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
1924 


All rights reserved 


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PRINTED BY yO 
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LANCASTER, PA. _ Neris.. 


THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
CoLuMBIA UNIVERSITY 
New York City 


SALES AGENTS 


LONDON 
HUMPHREY MILFORD 
AMEN CorRNER, E.C. 
SHANGHAI 
EDWARD EVANS & SONS, Lrp. 
30 NortTH SzECHUEN Roap 


NOTE 


Among the few Hebrew documents of importance that have 
come down to us dealing with the history of the Jews in the 
Middle Ages—not counting the Genizah documents—the 
Chronicle of a certain Ahimaaz stands out prominently; and 
this for two reasons. In the first place it presents us with certain 
facts which otherwise would have escaped our knowledge. In 
the second place it contains some flights of the imagination which 
are interesting because of the light that they throw upon the 
spiritual history of the Jewish communities during those days. 
A re-edition of the text published by Neubauer is worth while 
because of the incomplete character of the one manuscript upon 
which it was based. A translation is necessary in order that 
they may make use of it who are unacquainted with the Hebrew 
language. Dr. Salzman has done both of these with much care 
and precision; and he has added the necessary notes in order to 
make plain that which may be obscure. 


RICHARD GOTTHEIL 
CoLuMBIA UNIVERSITY, 
October 5th, 1923. 


Fn fest epee £ 


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PREFACE 


It was with a deep sense of satisfaction that this study was 
undertaken. While the first suggestion of it was under con- 
sideration, interest in it was further stimulated by a note from the 
head of the Semitic Department in another university, inde- 
pendently naming the Chronicle of Ahimaaz as a choice subject 
of study. Now that these labors are brought to a close, I cannot 
but feel that such emphatic endorsement was well bestowed. 

The attempts to obtain a copy of the MS. proved unavailing, 
but they were rewarded to the extent of receiving from Professor 
A.S. Yahuda, of Madrid, the personal assurance that the Neubauer 
edition of it is an accurate transcription of the orignal. This 
study of the Chronicle, like those that have preceded it, is based 
on the Neubauer text, but, in addition, considers the emenda- 
tions suggested by Neubauer, Kaufmann, Bacher, Brody and 
others. The sources of the various suggestions are indicated in 
the notes by N, K, B and Br respectively. Through the courtesy 
of the Oxford University Press, the notes of its edition have 
here been incorporated as especially helpful in showing the 
condition of the MS. 

The principal authorities consulted are named in the notes. 
Two of them have been of exceptional value; David Kaufmann, 
in his masterly analysis of the Chronicle (MGWJ, 1896), and 
Jules Gay, in an exhaustive account of the same two centuries that 
are covered by Ahimaaz’ records, “L’ Italie Meridionale et 
L’Empire Byzantin, 876-1071” (1904). To Professor Gottheil, 
to whom I owe the first suggestion of this study, I am deeply 
indebted for constant encouragement and scholarly guidance 
through the difficulties of the task. With gratitude I acknowledge 
also the cordial assistance of Professor J. T. Shotwell of Co- 
lumbia University, of Professor Schmidt of Cornell University, 
and of Professor Lauterbach of the Hebrew Union College; and 
the efficient cooperation of Mr. F. C. Erb of Columbia Library, 
of Mr. A. M. Freidus of the Department of Jewish Literature 
of the New York Public Library, of Mr. A. S. Oko of the Hebrew 
Union College Library. 


WILKES Barrgé, 
June, 1921. 
vil 





PART 


Il. 


CONTENTS 


MM TINIUICUIOLL ee PR ee LS oie gs ee tees 1 
Translation of “The Chronicle of Ahimaaz.”..... . 60 
Tex ee ee Bale wee ee sere me tee ee OS 


Text of “The Chronicle of Ahimaaz’”’............. 1-28 


a eres Se tad od mn dette, i 





THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


PATOL 


INTRODUCTION 


Of al! the documents bearing upon Jewish History, made 
available in the closing years of the nineteenth century, none has 
been prized more highly than the Chronicle of Ahimaaz. The 
great expectations aroused among scholars when the first in- 
dications of the discovery of the manuscript in the Cathedral 
Library of Toledo by Adolph Neubauer were given by him in 
preliminary studies,! were fully realized when it appeared in a 
carefully edited text in his Collection of Mediaeval Jewish 
Chronicles.” It was at once acclaimed as a most valuable addition 
to the meager sources of our knowledge of a chapter of Jewish life 
that was all but closed to investigation. In the laborious attempts 
to piece together its story, the student’s chief reliance had been 
the fragmentary data gleaned from the writings of Shabbethai 
Donnolo,’ and from the inscriptions on the grave-stones of Venosa.* 
With such information, one could scarely avoid the summary, 
disdainful verdict of Graetz°—contrasting the wealth of evidence 
that proclaimed the culture of western European Jewry, with the 
dearth and insignificance of the records of Jewish life and learning 
in Mediaeval Italy, under Byzantine rule—that the period in 
question must have been a time of utter social degradation and of 
intellectual sterility, buried in oblivion because it had produced 

1JQR 4, 614; REJ 23, 236: ‘Nous arrivons maintenant 4 un autre 
document qui nous donne des dates plus certaines sur notre Ahron.”’ 

2 Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, II, 111-132. 

3 An eminent physician and writer; a native of Oria, 913-982. Having 
traveled in quest of education among Greeks, Arabians, Babylonians and 
Indians, he wrote his chief work, Hakemani, a commentary to one of the leading 
mystical books of his day. Graetz, Gesch. 5, 316; Castelli Il Commento di 
Sabbatai Donnolo sul Libro della Creazione; Zunz GV 376. 

4 Ascoli, Iscriziont, 39; Broydé, ‘Paleography,’ JE 1X 476. 

5 Below, 30. 

1 


2 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


nothing that deserved to be remembered. Against this positive 
and plausible judgment, protests that could, for the most part, 
be sustained only by ingenious surmise and assumption, availed 
but little. With the discovery of this family Chronicle, however, 
the discussion was no longer to be abandoned for want of tangible 
evidence. In it we had obtained a luminous, authentic, con- 
temporary record that added substantially to our knowledge 
of the Jewish communities in the Byzantine Empire, from the 
middle of the ninth to the middle of the eleventh century. 

In the first scholarly study of it, David Kaufmann! enthusiasti- 
cally drew attention to its graphic account of thriving communal 
activity, to its direct help in establishing the identity of scholars 
and poets that had long been but vaguely defined in Jewish 
literature, to its wealth of linguistic, cultural and _ historical 
information. Bacher,” in the same vein, characterized it as not 
“une chronique séche, mais un récit vivant, extrémement 
intéressant par une foule d’anecdotes historiques et toute sorte 
d’épisodes merveilleux.”” Ina review of the volume of Chronicles 
containing the text of Ahimaaz, Brody,’? approvingly repeating 
Kaufmann’s designation of it as the precious pearl of the entire 
collection, likewise regards it as of indisputable value. And 
Steinschneider,* controverting an opinion of Kaufmann’s that 
the Jewish writers of Italy, for want of a sense of historical 
values, had contributed but poorly to the annals of Jewish life, 
and while believing that Kaufmann had been too lavish in his 
praise of the new chronicle, cites it as an instance of an important 
historical document written by an Italian Jewish chronicler. 

This high estimate given by its first students has been confirmed 
in the ready acceptance and wide application of its information 
by their successors. Among the more recent authorities, Israel 
Abrahams,’ dwells upon its special value as a personal and local 
chronicle, and acknowledges his indebtedness to it. Likewise, 

1MGWJ 40. 

2 REJ 32, 144. 

3 Z. der Hebr. Bibl. II 159. 

‘MGWJ 44, 239. 


5 Chapters on Jewish Literature, 213; The Book of Delight and Other Papers. 
127, 182, 305 


INTRODUCTION 3 


Joseph Jacobs! in his survey of Jewish Historiography 
counts it among the chronicles of prime importance. Accepting 
the testimony of its traditions, S. Eppenstein,? in his revision 
of the fifth volume of Graetz’ History, refutes the _histori- 
an’s contemptuous view of Byzantine Jewish life and culture. 
Again, in a study® of the Legend of the Four Captives, dis- 
senting from the commonly accepted tradition of Ibn Daud? 
regarding them, he confidently rests his argument upon the 
narrative of Ahimaaz, which, in his opinion, is a chronicle that, 
to a very large extent, sheds new light upon the social status of 
the Jews in Southern Italy. Whereas in the earlier editions of his 
history,’ Theodore Reinach sees in the Byzantine emperor Leo VI 
the most violent representative of administrative persecution in 
that mediaeval empire, in the fourth edition (1910), he has adopted 
the very opposite view, “Léon VI leur rendit la liberté du culte,”’ 
manifestly influenced by the chronicle’s unequivocal statement to 
that effect, a statement that we have not yet found so directly made 
in any other source. E. N. Adler® brings its information to bear 
upon a number of Geniza documents and submits it as decisive 
in determining the time and place of their origin and their 
documentary value. In the judgment of our foremost authority’ 
in Byzantine Jewish studies, this family record is “die wundervolle 
Chronik.” Finally, the eminent French scholar, Jules Gay,® in 
his masterly work on Southern Italy during the two centuries 
of Basilian sovereignty, recognizes it as an important aid to a 
knowledge of the Jewish Communities, better than that which 
we have of the Armenian and other settlements among the popu- 
lation of the Byzantine Empire, of whose life we have no such 
vivid record. Quoting from it at length, he accepts this “histoire 
d’une famille de notables juifs”’ as a trustworthy record. A col- 
lection of traditions, faithfully reflecting the life of a period that 
| 1 Historiography, JH, VI 428. 
2 Gesch. 5, 332, note 1. 
‘MGW 55, 622. 
4 Sefer haKabala (Neubauer, MJCI, 67; Abrahams, J.Lit. 213). 
5 Histoire des Israélites, 1901, 43. 
® REJ 67, 40. 


7 Krauss, Studien zur byzantinisch-jiidischen Geschichte (1914), 43. 
8 L’ Italie méridionale et VEmpire Byzantin (867-1071), (1904), 591. 


4 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


was so largely a terra incognita of historical study, may well have 
been considered a particularly happy discovery, Revelling in 
the possession of this treasure, Kaufmann!’ truly thought of it as 
the large fulfillment of a wish long cherished by scholars, hoping 
against hope that their suspicion of vigorous life among the Jews 
of Byzantium would, by unquestionable testimony, grow into 
conviction. 

The author unpretentiously named his work, “A Book of 
Genealogies.” The title gives but little indication of its ex- 
ceptional worth. Even a cursory reading of it proves that it 
is by no means an arid chronicle of men and events such as is 
usually suggested by that designation. With striking literary 
skill, the disjecta membra of ancestral traditions are assembled 
in a vividly interesting and instructive story. No doubt, as the 
author says, the material had to be laboriously “gathered like 
stubble,” * but the remarkably coherent product he has made 
of it gives no impression of a halting and crude narrative. The 
invocation, and the introductory statement of his aim, with his 
pledge of accuracy, are the index of a mind that is wholly aware 
of the difficulties of its task, yet reverently confident of its 
ability to overcome them, for the exaltation of the departed 
sages, and for the edification of their descendants. And for 
this labor of love nothing but the most artistic setting, as it was 
understood in the author’s day, will suffice. By the use of the 
rimed prose structure,’ so highly favored at that time, he added 
to the difficulty of setting forth the annals of his family; im- 
posing its artificial literary restraints and demands, it is probably 
responsible for an occasional inaccuracy in the details of the 
record. 

Donnolo,’ a century before Ahimaaz, had already made use of 

1 MGWJ 40. 

2 Below, 60. 

5 Below, 60. 

4 Bacher REJ 32, 147, observes on its literary form, “généralement écrite 
dans une prose rimée assez aisée et claire, et qui ne rappelle la langue de Kalir 
que par quelques irregularités et quelques formations de mots trés hardies.’’ 
A unique form, as noted by Neubauer, “étant écrite en prose rimée est im- 


possible 4 traduire en Frangais,” (REJ 23, 236). 
5 Above, 1 note 3. 


INTRODUCTION 5 


this distinctively Arabic form of writing, in the introduction to 
his “Hakemani.”’ During this century the exotic model of the 
Magqamat ! continued to grow in favor among Jewish writers, es- 
pecially after new impetus had been given to the fancy for it 
by the popular works of the Arabian Al Hamadhani,’ a forerunner 
of Hariri,’ who, a hundred years later, developed this literary 
form to its highest degree of excellence. When this chronicle 
of Oria was written, in the middle of the eleventh century, this 
co-ordination of Hebrew idiom and Arabic structure had become 
characteristic of Byzantine Jewish literature. Arabic influences 
had not then shattered the power of Hebrew as a living tongue. 
There is no indication of indifference to it, such as impelled 
Alharizi* to rebuke his contemporaries. The prevailing contempt 
for the language of the Bible is vividly brought home to him, 
when the work of Hariri is hailed by the Jews as a unique treas- 
ure. He determines to show by his translation of Hariri’s an- 
ecdotes, and by his own “'Tachkemoni,”’ the equally impressive 
possibilities of the Hebrew language, and to trace the ingenious 
parables and sublime thoughts to their source in Jewish tradition. 
There is, manifestly, no ground for such lamentation in Ahimaaz’ 
day. The free use of the good cultivated in the literature of 
others is thought compatible, in these mediaeval Jewish com- 
munities, with intelligent adherence to the excellence of their 
own. In the selection of the rimed prose form, Ahimaaz was 

1“The word maqama (lecture or séance) had long been used to describe 
the gatherings of the learned men and poets clustered about the Caliphs and 
Governors, at which they exchanged ideas on grammatical points, and vied 
with one another in wit and erudition.’’ Huart, History of Arabic Literature 
(1903), 133. 

2 This Arabian writer, surnamed the wonder of his time, flourished about 
the latter half of the tenth century. Through his letters in rimed prose, on 
literary topics, he gave new vogue to this form of writing. ‘To him belongs 
the credit of having created a new form of literature, by making a volume 
of short stories of the comic adventures of beggars and rogues, painted in the 
most brilliant colors by a learned author.’’—Huart, 134. 

3Improving upon the work of Al Hamadhani, Al-Hariri (1054-1122) 
produced the masterpiece in the rimed prose maqama literature, in his brilliant 
collection of stories (50) with their “fictitious hero, a vagabond nursed on 
literature, called Abu Zaid of Saruj” (Huart, 7b.). 


4 Abrahams, J.Lit. 131; Karpeles, Jewish Literature and Other Essays, 210; 
Graetz, 6, 209; De Sacy, Journ. As. (1833), 306, 


6 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


no doubt governed by something more than his individual 
preference. It may reasonably be supposed that there was 
a popular demand for it. Its use could not have been alto- 
gether arbitrary, adopted in a spirit of pedantry, to make an 
empty show of versatility. Some general acceptance of the 
chronicle must have been intended. There must have been 
an appreciative reading public that the author had in view. 
It is the public of those Byzantine Jewish communities that 
was distinguished for its encouragement of the sacred poetry 
of the Paitanim,! and whose intellectual capacity Ahimaaz, 
one of its poets, must have known. Furthermore, his work 
must have won the favor of its first readers; that public verdict 
of approval may well have stimulated the judgment of the 
copyist, who thought it worthy of being copied. It is a substan- 
tial, artistic product, worthy of the accomplished scholar and poet 
that the author was. 

To the Arabic literary refinement that so largely suggested 
its form must be added the infiuence of the Greek environment 
that likewise aided in its construction, with its language, and its 
popular literary devices. The double alphabetical acrostic of the 
elegy that serves as a closing impassioned survey of the family 
record, and the more important nominal acrostic that reveals the 
author’s name, are modeled after well-known forms of Byzantine 
Literature. Regardless of what may be said of the original 
source of the acrostic,? whether it was borrowed from Greek or 


1 The earliest liturgical poet of the synagog of whom we have knowledge 
is the Palestinian Jose ben Jose, of the 6th century. His most famous fol- 
lowers, of a century later, were Jannai, and Kalir. The latter was the first 
to embellish the entire liturgy with a series of hymns whose essential element 
was the Haggadah, and gave his name to that form of elegiac poetry, with 
its ‘‘profusion of rare words and obscure allusions, which was favored by the 
prolific Byzantine Jewish poets, and was adopted by the communities of 
France, England, Burgundy, Lorraine, Germany, Bohemia, Poland, Italy, 
Greece and Palestine. Whereas in Spain, the form more truly poetic, both 
in structure and in idea, developed in Castile, Andalusia and in countries 
where Arabic influence was strongest.”” Zunz, Literaturgeschichte; 26, 28, 29; 
Dukes, EKhrensdulen und Denksteine; Berliner, Die Juden in Rom, II 15; 
Abrahams, J.lit., 83ff; Deutsch, JE X 66. 

® Zunz, GV 391, 397; Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur, 
697; Abrahams, J.lit. 83. 


INTRODUCTION 7 


from Syriac Literature, there was a conspicuous development of 
such poetry in Byzantium. Its frequent use among Hebrew 
writers seems to begin with the Geonic age; during that period 
it was assiduously used by the Byzantine writers, above all, the 
hymnologists;! there wasa general fondness for it among the people. 
As a standard of acceptable writing in his day, it must have 
impressed Ahimaaz; in the atmosphere in which the acrostic 
flourished so luxuriantly, he must have found strong incentive 
to make use of it. We may also reasonably see in the very con- 
ception of this Hebrew chronicle the direct influence of the host of 
annalists, chroniclers and historians of the Byzantine world. The 
freedom of movement among the peoples of the empire could not 
have left him unaffected. He must have submitted to the influ- 
ences that centered in Constantinople, then the first city of the 
world. That he is a keenly observant man of letters is beyond 
question. He must have availed himself of his opportunities to 
have first-hand knowledge of Byzantine life and literature. 
Whether, as Kaufmann? seems to believe, no written family rec- 
ords were transmitted to Ahimaaz, or, more probably, some poorly 
preserved documents were at his disposal, he finds the need of 
supplementing the fragments of tradition with copious notes.* In 
these explanatory passages there is ample evidence that he has 
had access to other sources of knowledge, in all probality, 
Byzantine sources, by means of which he has transformed the 
meager annals into a fluent narrative. 

But the peculiar literary mould into which the chronicle 
has been cast is all but overlooked in the interest awakened 
by its substance. From the very beginning, one observes that 

1 Of the development of the sacred poetry of the Byzantine church, Krum- 
bacher says, ‘‘Die eigentliche Hymnendichtung beginnt wahrscheinlich im 
5. Jahrhundert. Sie bliihte besonders im 6. und 7. Jahrhundert. (Die 
_kunstvoll ausgefiihrten, grossartigen Gesinge eines Romanos und Sergios). 
Im 11. Jahrhundert ging die Bliihte der Hymnendichtung zu Ende”’ (677). 
His criticism of the poets of the period of deterioration is, ‘Kine gemeinsame 
Eigenschaft dieser Dichter ist schwiilstige Breite die, namentlich durch mass- 
enhafte neugebildete Beiwoérter bezeichnet, hiufig in leeres Wortgepréinge aus- 
artet.”” See also Dieterich, Gesch. der byzantinischen und neugriechischen 
Titeratur”’ (1902), 30, 32. 


2MGWJ 40, 540. 
3 Below, 60. 


8 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


the author makes no discrimination between legend and history. 
We look in vain for a selective rationalizing mind at work upon 
the traditions. From the standpoint of radical historical 
criticism, a document betraying such antiquated crudeness, 
thereby condemns itself as worthless in the service of modern 
historical study, doomed to be counted among the collections of 
garrulities and stupidities! of the Dark Ages. But such criticism 
must surely yield to the more plausible view that pleads the 
author’s right to be judged by the standard of his own time. 
Historiography,” in the broader sense, recognizes no such dead 
line against the writings that, in their naiveté, reflect truly the 
thought and life of centuries. 

The work of Ahimaaz, the child of his age, is, all in all, a 
legitimate product of the mediaeval “dame neuve et naive.’ ? 
He draws no sharp line of distinction between the fantastic tra- 
ditions of the supernatural and the bald annals of reality. Hered- 
ity and environment were at one in fostering the mentality that 
found the miraculous deeds of saints and masters of secret lore 
no less acceptable and credible than the more tangible achieve- 
ments of statesmen and conquerors. The life of St. Nilus, 
“le chef-d’oeuvre de la hagiographie calabraise,”’ * typical of the 
many lives of the Saints, scarely more than a collection of stories 
of sorcery, of miraculous healing, of wonders done by the saints, 
is a work of biographical and historical importance. And the 
writers of professedly historical records are aptly described as 
“chroniqueurs byzantins toujours grands amis du merveilleux,” ® 

‘Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship I, 427. The opinion of Ogg 
(Source-book of Mediaeval History, 934), regarding the narrative of Ammianus, 
that it is invaluable in spite of digressions and speculations on utterly foreign 
topics, is quite generally applicable to the mediaeval sources. 

2 J. T. Shotwell, History, En. Br. XIII. Berthold Lasch, Das Erwachen und 
die Entwickelung der historischen Kritik im Mittelalter (6-12 Jahrhundert), 1887. 

’ Jaulmes, Essai sur le Satanisme et la Superstition au Moyen Age, 1900. 
Ellinger, Das Verhdltniss der éffentlichen Meinung zu Wahrheit und Liige, 
1884. Gebhart, De l’Italie mystique, 1893. 

‘Gay, L’It. merid. 269, 278; Lasch 117, ‘Lange Zeit herrscht den Wundern 
gegentiber vollige Kritiklosigkeit, nicht blos in den Heiligen-Biographien.— 
Gregor von Tours schweift fast auf jeder Seite seiner Frankengeschichte 


in ausfiihrlichen Wundererzihlungen ab.’ 
6 Vogt, Basile 1 et la Civilization byz. a la fin du 9. s., 26. 


INTRODUCTION 9 


as we should expect of those who studied and recorded with and 
for the mediaeval mind of the Empire of the East. In the 
prophecies, prodigies and miracles that Finlay! singles out for 
observation in the chronicles of Theophanes, and the other biog- 
raphers of Leo the Isaurian, they are representative of the age. 
Nor is this unreserved acceptance of the supernatural confined to 
the masses and the writers of average learning and ability; in the 
ranges of exceptional intellectuality also, a Photius? and a Psellus ® 
do not discriminate against it. Another point of close resemblance 
between the material in this chronicle and that of similar works 
of contemporary Byzantine writers, is the marked contrast 
between the fullness and assurance with which the legends of the 
marvelous are told, and the brevity and indifference that obscure 
the stories of fact. 

Beyond these general considerations regarding the substance 
of this record, special interest attaches to its scope, covering 
almost exactly the two eventful centuries between the rise of the 
Macedonian dynasty’ in the Byzantine Empire and its fall. It 
bears directly upon the epochal years that began with the ac- 
cession of Basil, the Macedonian groom and soldier of fortune; 
the usurper of the tottering throne of Michael the Drunkard, 
to whom it was given to save the state from imminent dis- 
integration, and to inaugurate a new day of commanding 
splender and power; the founder of the dynasty, under whose 
sovereigns the Byzantine Empire reached the height of its 
prosperity between the middle of the ninth and the middle of 
the eleventh centuries. The year in which Ahimaaz finishes his 
chronicle, 1054, antedates by a few years the time in which 
Theodora,° the last scion of the Basilian dynasty, comes to the 
throne; heir to an empire rapidly yielding to the forces of 
dissolution, and finally doomed when Michael VI, succeeding to 

1 Finlay, History of Greece, II, 25. 

2 Sandys, J, 388 ff. 

3 Rambaud, Michel Psellus, Revue historique 3, 241. Rhodius, Psellus. 
Sandys, J, 401; Krumbacher, 168, 628, 721. 

‘Finlay, I], 228; Vogt, Basile 1; Gibbon, ch. 48; Hartmann, Gesch. 
Italiens im Mittelalter III, 1 Halfte, 268. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Vita 


Bas. 
6 Finlay, I], 447. 


10 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


power after her death, surrenders the imperial crown to Isaac 
Comnenus,! the leader of the rebellious Byzantine nobles of Asia 
Minor. It marks the inglorious close of a chapter of vital 
importance in history, that opened with a hundred years” of the 
consolidation of legislation and despotism under the first four 
emperors, that rapidly advanced to a culminating period of 
conquest and military glory (963-1025), and that hastened to 
its end, through a brief period of feeble administration, the 
conservatism and stationary prosperity under Constantine and 
the three consorts of the Empress Zoe, “when intelligent cen- 
tralization had passed into stupid despotism,’ ? (1025-1054), 
and prepared the way for the conquests of the Norman invader. 

The chronicle, purporting to confine itself to the inner affairs 
of a Jewish family extending over that period, naturally drawn 
into the currents of the tumultuous life that surrounded it, 
could not well be an utterly detached document, showing no 
point of contact with the men and the events that shaped the 
history of Basilian sovereignty. The author’s first complete 
tradition dates from the time of Basil I. The general initial 
statement in which he traces the remote origin of his family in 
Oria to the exiles of Judea whom Titus brought to Italy, seems to 
have been the prevailing opinion among the Byzantine Jews 
during the period of which he writes, as the same view regarding 
the first Jewish settlements is expressed in the Josippon,‘ written 
almost a century earlier than the work of Ahimaaz; probably it 
was still the commonly accepted belief in the chronicler’s day. He 
would then be justified in attributing such a tradition to his an- 
cestors, to add to the completeness of his story, even if he had no 
specific family record of it. This would seem to be substantiated 

1 Chalandon, Essai sur le Regne d’ Alexis 1 Comnéne. Curtis, Roger of Sicily. 
Haskins, The Normans. Delare, Les Normands en Italie. J.B. Bury, Roman 
Emperors from Basil II to Isaac Komnenos (English Historical Review, 1889). 
Chalandon, Histoire de la Domination Normande en Italie et en Sicile. 

2 Sandys, J 401. 

3R. C. Jebb, Modern Greece, 24. 

4 Joseph b. Gorion, commonly known as Josippon, was the author of a 
history of the Jews from the fall of Babylon (538 B.C.E.) to the fall of 
Jerusalem (70 C.E.). He was probably a native of Southern Italy, in the 


latter half of the tenth century. Abrahams, J.lit. 214; Zunz, GV 154ff, 376; 
Graetz, 5, 251. 


INTRODUCTION 11 


by the fact that he has no word of private tradition regarding 
the eight centuries intervening between that time of settlement 
on the soil of Italy and the time of Amittai, the first of his progeni- 
tors of whom he can speak with any degree of certainty, so that he 
must content himself with the assumption, truly warranted, that 
the years hidden in obscurity were not barren years, but richly 
productive of vigorous and thriving life that made possible the 
career of this distinguished figure in the ancestral line. And of 
this ancestor, emerging in the middle of the ninth century, his 
information restricts him to but a dim outline. 

It is indeed noteworthy that any Jewish family could so clearly 
have traced its pedigree through two hundred years of the 
Middle Ages. Yet, when we consider that in this instance, the 
starting-point is found in the reign of Basil I., we might question 
whether it is by mere coincidence that the light fails the author 
beyond this point. There must have been a dead-line, baffling 
all penetration, fixed by the forces of disorder that were rampant 
until the organizing and saving power of Basil subdued them. 
For many years! before the establishment of the Macedonian 
regime, there had been notoriously vicious adminstration and 
consequent social degradation. Harassed by the Saracens from 
without, distracted by anarchy within, the empire had come to 
the verge of dissolution. During the more than one hundred 
years between the fall of the exarchate of Ravenna and the reign 
of Basil, there had been almost incessant antagonism and war- 
fare between rival ducal interests. ‘“Occupés a batailler,”? says 
Gay, “les uns contre les autres, quelle resistance peuvent-ils 
opposer aux Sarrasins? Les guerres privées, que deviennent 
pour ces seigneurs turbulents et féroces, une habitude et un besoin, 
font autant de ravages et aménent autant de ruines que les 
incursions musulmanes. C’est l’anarchie féodale dans toute 
son horreur.”” The recovery of Byzantine power and prestige, 
under Leo the Isaurian*® and his Iconoclast followers, had been 
succeeded by a deterioration that was at its worst stage under the 

1A century of tumultuous vicissitudes from the fall of the exarchate of 
Ravenna to the accession of Basil (866). Finlay, //, 43. 


2 Gay, 69. 
3 Finlay, IJ, 13. 


3 


12 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


impotent Michael! the Drunkard, the immediate predecessor of 
Basil. Furthermore, the province of Apulia was the specially 
coveted objective of the Arabian invaders; it had been the scene 
of fierce battles, until it fell into their hands (849-866). Under 
such conditions there could have been no security for any 
material gathered for private record; there could have been no 
encouragement to gather it. The populous Jewish settlements in 
this province lay directly in the path of the plundering hordes. 
Few intelligible records could have survived, even if they could 
have been coherently written, amid such havoc of invasion, 
deportation and decimation. Ahimaaz was not likely to find 
any family tradition of those earlier ancestors, of whom all trace 
was, for the time being at least, completely lost. But what was 
then denied to Amittai and his descendants, may through the 
perseverance of modern scholars be granted to us. Among the 
manuscripts of the Geniza in his possession, E. N. Adler? has found 
a letter that seems to lead a little further through the obscurity 
of that troublous period. Its reference to an Amittai b. Hodia, 
whom he seems correctly to identify with the patriarchal an- 
cestor of Ahimaaz, would give us the additional knowledge of 
an older generation of the line of descent. 

Under Basil a new day of aggressive and constructive energy 
begins. Royal favor bestowed upon the wisest son of Amittai, 
saves at least his own community at Oria, and probably, as was 
believed by the Jews of the Middle Ages,’ a number of neighbor- 
ing ones, from oblivion. The recollection of such an experience 
and of the hero to whom it was due was in little danger of being 
lost; and with a naturally vivid impression of the communal life 
in which he grew to leadership, tradition would here clearly de- 
termine for the chronicler where the actual history of the family 
should begin, with the material at his command. It would cer- 
tainly be treasured as a thrilling topic of oral and written trans- 
mission. That the immediate family of Amittai had no knowledge 
of anything like it, by which an earlier branch of the family might 
have been remembered, must also have contributed to the de- 

1 Finlay, IJ, 161. 


2 Adler, REJ 67, 40. 
* Graetz, 5, 245. Bacher, REJ 32, 144ff. Krauss, Studien, 44. 


INTRODUCTION iss 


termination of the beginning of the family record. The position 
here taken presupposes that Ahimaaz depended largely upon writ- 
ten sources for his information; not so much upon formal collec- 
tions of traditions, as upon brief notes of interest to the family 
made from time to time by his ancestors, sages and poets, who 
might be expected to give attention to some such record, or upon 
their writings and those of their contemporaries that would surely 
reflect the leading facts of their experience. What may at one 
time have been sufficient material for a complete history of 
the family, had come down to Ahimaaz as a confused mass of 
fragments. He found it so incomplete that, as Kaufmann re- 
marks, he could not, as arule, give any chronological information 
about his family. 

Upon closer study the intrinsic value of the Chronicle is 
more clearly seen. To begin with, the biographical notes it 
contains compel attention. If it had given us nothing more 
than the bare enumeration of the respective heads of the eight 
generations which it sets in order, it would have done much 
to clear up a number of difficulties, that have encumbered Medi- 
aeval Jewish studies in general, and Byzantine Jewish research 
in particular. At the head of the ancestral line, Amittai is all 
but forgotten, not even his father’s name is remembered; tradi- 
tion has preserved his name and the recognition of his em- 
inence as a master of talmudical learning and a liturgical 
poet. But even this incomplete tradition serves as an in- 
disputable corrective of the speculations about the facts of his 
life. The family annals are much more circumstantial regarding 
the distinguished sons of this patriarch. The eminence, es- 
pecially recognized in their day, the mastery of secret lore 
and its practice, is recalled at great length, but not to the ex- 
clusion of their renown as leaders of the people in school and 
synagog, sages and poets, through whose quickening labors, 
Oria was a center of Jewish learning. The traditional estimates 
of the greatness of the three brothers are clearly indicated. 
Eleazar, the youngest, who is very briefly mentioned, yet 
honored for high attainments, is evidently not ranked with the 
two elder brothers. The story proceeds from the less to the 


14 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


more eminent, quickly disposing of Eleazar; for a while mingling 
the copious traditions of Shephatiah and Hananeel; exalting 
them with equal praise, but finally elevating Shephatiah above 
them all. This part of the Chronicle not only added a new 
name to our list of liturgical poets, but also dispelled all doubt about 
the time and the country in which Shephatiah' and Hananeel? 
lived, and proved that in this Shephatiah we had the original 
of the heroic figure of Mediaeval Jewish legend. 

The Chronicle did not rigidly confine itself to the mem- 
bers of this family; mingled with this information was the 
story of the far-reaching influence of Abu Aaron,® the Babylo- 
nian, in his travels among the communities of Southern Italy; 
a story that revealed for the first time the real master who 
had long been a legendary Father of Mysteries, counted among 
the fantastic creations of the mystical mind. In the same 
comprehensive way, considerable space is given to a tradition 
about one of the leading poets of that early generation, Silanus,* 
whereby we can replace vague theory with substantial truth as 
to his place in the succession of the synagog’s liturgical poets. 
Again, the Chronicle’s facts regarding the family’s most conspicu- 
ous representative in the third generation, Amittai®b. Shephatiah, 
remove all uncertainty as to when and where he appeared in our 
literary history. As the family record unfolds we see what good 
reason there is for the joy that the chronicler manifestly finds 
in his labor. These descendants of the first Amittai are, with 
the single exception of the unworthy Baruch, true to their high 
heritage of learning and piety. They were not all poets and 
teachers; some of them were famous men of affairs, called to high 
adminstrative office in the state. Intense interest attaches to 
the wealth of tradition setting forth the unique greatness of 
Paltiel, who rises to the dignity of vizier of Al Muizz,® the first 
Fatimite caliph of Egypt. Similar distinction is bestowed 
upon the author’s grandfather, Samuel, the Minister of Finance 

1 Below, 62, 81; Zunz, GV 376; Graetz, 5; 245. 

2 Below, 62, 77. 

3 Below, 63, 76; Neubauer, REJ 23, 236. 

4 Below, 68. 


5 Below, 86. 
§ Below, 88. 


INTRODUCTION 15 


in the principality of Capua, and upon his son, Paltiel, the 
author’s father. In marked contrast with this eager, extended 
narrative devoted to a Paltiel,! is the brevity with which others, 
who must have been less renowned, are entered in the record. 
This was partly due, no doubt, to such discrimination shown in the 
material at the author’s disposal, expressing the judgment of his 
ancestors on the more and the less eminent; the independent 
judgment of Ahimaaz also, may well be partly accountable for it. 
A compiler of literary insight and of a keen sense of proportion, he 
may have said even less than he could have said of a Hasadiah? 
and others who appear only in name, who seem to be hurried over 
so that the more illustrious career may be the more quickly 
reached, and that the most may be made of every incident bearing 
upon it. Finally, not the least important item in these bio- 
graphical notes is that which gives us some actual knowledge of 
the author himself,’—born in Capua in 1017, writing his chronicle 
in 1054; eventually returning to the home of his ancestors, 
Oria. In this crowning work of his life, Ahimaaz ben Paltiel 
reveals himself as the elegiac poet who had long been a problem 
to the historian of Jewish Literature. 

From this survey of the chronicle’s biographical data, it is 
evident that the author did not content himself with a loose array 
of the gleanings in his possession. Pedantic compilation and 
transcription, rigidly confined to the source in the rough, 
could not have produced this work. The freedom of thought 
and language characteristic of a Paitan, has here been used 
to good purpose, so that the intention to do justice to the facts, 
by means of ample comments and connectives, is carried out. 
In some instances the supplementary information is easily 
distinguished. A badly shattered body of tradition could 
not well have preserved, in such complete form, the detailed 
description of Al Muizz’ expedition to Egypt,* and that of the 
lavish magnificence of the caliph’s palace and the incidents of 

! Below, 88. 

2 Below, 88. 

3 Below, 100. 


4 Below, 93; Amari, Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia, 2, 281. Miller, Der 
Islam (1885), 1, 618ff. . 


16 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


the visit of the Byzantine envoy,! as anecdotes of the life of 
Paltiel. Similarly, the attempt at chronology at the end of 
the Chronicle gives the impression that there is very little in the 
record by which it may be accurately determined. As he was 
about to finish his task, the author may have felt that some 
such scheme of years, at least approximately accurate, filling 
a void in the traditions, could be developed out of what was to be 
inferred from them and what could be derived from other 
sources of information. There is in the crude annals some 
reliable guidance for the student of their chronology. Un- 
mistakable historical landmarks along the line of succession, 
may well have seemed sufficient, in the judgment of the guard- 
ians of the record, to tell the number of their years. The 
time of the first generation is quite accurately determined 
when we read of their experiences in the reign of Basil,’ de- 
scribed in terms that can apply only to the first Byzantine 
emperor by that name. And the succeeding generations are 
marked off by points of contact with the men and the events 
that helped make Byzantine history during the two hundred 
years of the record. 

These family memories, then, interesting as they are to those 
to whom they are of immediate concern, also have distinct 
value for their thoughts on the general history of the world 
in which the men and women of this family circle moved. In 
them, we have for the first time contemporaneous attestation 
of Basil’s missionary zeal against heretics in general and the 
Jews in particular, from a new point of view. Their intrepretation 
of this policy of the Emperor as one of cruel fanaticism is, of 
course, the very opposite of that which is common to the Byzantine 
chroniclers, who regarded such persecution as a wise and praise- 
worthy exercise of imperial power. There is but one of them, 
Zonaras, who denounces Basil as an “ignorant and superstitious 
bigot.” This dissenting view, however, could scarely prevail 
as against that of the men who wrote under the dictation of the 

1 Finlay 2, 208; Weil, 2, 297; Amari, Storia, 2, 279; Gay, 158; Theo- 
phanes Contin. 60; Symeon Magister, 419; Genesios, 29; Leo Grammaticus, 


452; Below, 89. 
2 Below, 69, 73. 


INTRODUCTION 17 


royal biographer of Basil, his grandson Constantine Porphy- 
rogenitus. Such exaltation, sustained by the conciliation of the 
Pope, by extensive building of churches, by zeal in converting 
Jews, was likely to be recorded, to the exclusion of theless flattering 
testimony. It may well be, as Finlay concludes, that “though he 
was a judicious and able sovereign, he has been unduly praised, 
because he was one of the most orthodox emperors of Con- 
stantinople in the opinion of the Latin as well as of the Greek 
church.” In this connection, it should be observed that the 
chronicle of Oria qualifies its bitter denunciation with a report 
of the good that it knows of him. In this spirit of justice, we are 
told that Basil was indeed the author and the administrator of the 
monstrous edict of persecution, but he was not lost to all sense of 
honor and gratitude. His pledge to the sage of Oria is scrupulously 
kept, though it means a decided lapse from his highest ambition. 
Lamentation over the years of his intolerance does not crowd out 
the recognition of the noble act that illumines the record of 
violence. With this tradition of Ahimaaz before him, Graetz! 
could have said with greater assurance: “Basil is not to be 
counted among the most depraved of Byzantine sovereigns; 
he was not utterly lost to the sense of justice and clemency.” 

This chronicle stands alone in its reference to a daughter? of 
Basil. Inasmuch as the leading Byzantine annalists and histori- 
ans are actually official recorders, chiefly interested in affairs of 
state, they would naturally confine themselves to the considera- 
tion of men and women who held some position of political, 
ecclesiastical or military importance. That they make no men- 
tion of a daughter of this emperor would, therefore, not 
warrant discarding the Jewish tradition as untrustworthy. The 
presumption in its favor is strong; a presumption based upon the 
remarkable accuracy of the chronicle in the passages that can 
be controlled by the traditions of established authority. In this 
respect, the entire passage of which the story of the emperor’s 
daughter is a part, is a typical instance. What we have learned 
from the official sources regarding Basil’s methods of bringing 


1 Gesch. 5, 244. 
2 Below, 71. 


18 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


the Jews into the church 1—the ensnaring religious disputation, 
the use of suasion through the promise of freedom from indignities, 
and exemption from extortionate taxation, and the assurance of 
appointment to positions of honor, and, as a last resort, the 
violence of compulsory baptism,—is here told in the concrete 
experience of Shephatiah, the unsuspecting Jewish sage, escaping 
the snare of the discussion of the surpassing splendor of Saint 
Sophia, resisting all efforts to tempt him to abandon his faith 
with the allurements of lavish wealth and honors; and finally, 
awakened to the sinister purpose of all the attention bestowed 
upon him, insisting upon his dismissal, the protection granted 
him under the royal seal alone saves him from the violence to 
which the emperor is aroused. And this agreement with the 
accepted records of that period extends even to the name of the 
favorite imperial villa Bukoleon, and to the obtrusiveness of the 
images, which is implied in Shephatiah’s insistence upon a place 
of seclusion, free from them. Whether these details were so 
fully transmitted in his family fragments, or drawn from the 
author’s own fund of current knowledge, his presentation of 
them reveals an accurate recorder. 

It is, however, a trial of our faith in him as he advances in the 
history of the Empire and differs from all other sources in what 
he emphatically ascribes to the successor of Basil, Leo VI.? 
Apparently yielding to a strong temptation, Ahimaaz has placed 
in juxtaposition, the contrasting traditions about Basil and Leo: 
for the moment he disarranges the story of Shephatiah, and 
confuses the sequence of events. As opposed to the oppression 
of Basil, the toleration of Leo, so gratefully remembered, may 
well have served to stimulate the chronciler’s eagerness to turn 
to this bright page of the record. To his ancestors and to him, 
it is the outstanding fact of the reign of the second emperor of 
the house of Basil, this annulment of the edict of persecution. 
All in all, this tradition, whose terseness is but a poor measure 
of its unique importance, was aptly inserted where it was least 
likely to mar the coherence of the chronicle. In attributing 

1 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Vita Bas. XCV, 357; Vogt, Basile 1, 302 ff.; 


Krauss, Studien, 44; Below, 72. 
2 Below, 74. 


INTRODUCTION 19 


to him the restoration of their religious liberty, there is the clear 
thought of his complete and individual possession of the throne.! 
No such doubt enters here as has arisen from the conflict of 
authorities on this point. However, as between those who contend 
that he ruled jointly first with his elder brother, before their 
father’s death, and later with the younger, until the latter, 
wearying of imperial responsibility, yielded all power to Leo, and 
those who see no evidence of joint sovereignty, modern historians 
designate the period of Bzyantine history between 886 and 912 
as the reign of Leo the wise, or the Philosopher, as Ahimaaz does. 
Equally explicit is the chronicle’s designation, in the phrase 
“his own flesh,” of Leo as the son of Basil. It betrays no trace 
of the suspicion, to say nothing of the actual belief, that he was 
the son” of the murdered Michael III, the view generally held 
by modern historians, accepting the testimony of the principal 
Byzantine chroniclers, finding conclusive proof of its validity 
in their report that Leo, immediately upon his accession, dis- 
interred the body of Michael, to honor it with the royal burial 
that Theodora and Basil had denied it. Ahimaaz’ testimony on 
such matters may fairly be judged as the opinion of those who 
had scant means of going back of the realities of their time. 
To them, his immediate and uncontested succession to Basil 
may well have been sufficient reason for considering him a le- 
gitimate son. Likewise, to all appearances, he was sole ruler, 
even though his brother may also have been emperor in name. 

The fervid invocation of blessing, inspired by the memory of 
Leo,® demands special consideration. It clashes, at every point, 

1 New impetus is given the discussion regarding Leo’s sole rulership by a 
study of S. P. Lambros (Byz. Zeits. 4, 92) based upon an inscription of the 
year 895, corroborating what had already been indicated on coins, (De Saulcy, 
Essai de classification des suites monetaires byzantines, 240), that Leo and 
Alexander were joint sovereigns before and after the death of Basil. But 
- there is nothing in the Byzantine sources to warrant the opinion that they 
shared the imperial power. 

2 On the matter of Leo’s parentage, Zonaras (II, 166) is representative of 
the leading Byzantine historians, “ Basilio filius Leo ex Eudocia nascitur, qui 
Michaelis esse potius credebatur, quasi praegnans fuisset Eudocia Basilio 
collocata.’’? Georg. Monach. 541, 544; Leo Grammaticus, 468, 471; Symeon 
Magister, 455; Finlay, 2, 257. 

5 Below, 74. 


20 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


with the judgment so long considered beyond dispute, founded 
upon the study of the Basilika’s drastic measures against the Jews, 
and especially of those in the Novellae attributed to Leo. 
Whether the men who are responsible for Ahimaaz’ tradition had 
any knowledge of this legislation in the Imperial Code or not, 
they, as the immediate beneficiaries, positively bear witness 
to a new administrative tolerance under his rule. Here the 
chronicle is much more than a leisurely recital of incidents 
more or less generally known. As Krauss! expresses it, it creates 
a difficult situation. It challenges us with a new problem. And 
this testimony is convincing, as has already been recognized by 
authorities of the first rank.” It is difficult to think of it as any- 
thing but a clear statement of fact, a tradition vouched for by the 
people directly affected, who would certainly know whether they 
suffered the violence of persecution or were free to profess their 
religion. 

With this digression on the reign of Leo, which so amply 
justifies itself, the author, reverting to the life of Shephatiah 
under Basil, shows another phase of the stormy historical 
setting of the time. He vividly describes the far-reaching 
ravages of the Arabians,’ when they overran the provinces of 
Calabria and Apulia. He may not have had reference to any 
particular plundering foray, but generally to the incursions 
that almost incessantly made havoc in Southern Italy in the 
first years of Basil’s reign and earlier, as seen and experienced 
by his ancestors; perhaps the general description explains 
why no date is given. Nevertheless the tradition indicates the 
stage of Arabian conquest in the Byzantine Empire, in which it 
originated. The invaders are still in possession of Bari; it had 
been taken by storm in 849, almost twenty years before the 
accession of Basil; and it was used as a base from which their 
frequent depredations were made, as here shown in the fall of Oria, 
until it was wrested from them in 871,’ by the combined forces of 
Basil and Louis the Pious; a victory that, through a period of 

1 Krauss, Studien 44 n. 8. 

2 Above, 3. 


§ Below, 74. 
4 Finlay, 2, 249. 


INTRODUCTION 21 


lawlessness, paved the way for its ultimate submission to Byzan- 
tine administration as the supreme power in Calabria, by which the 
Saracens were expelled from the mainland and confined to their 
conquests in Sicily. The historical background is thus well 
preserved in the account of the life of the first generation of 
Amittai’s descendants. 

In the first half of the chronicle, almost entirely devoted to 
the sons of Amittai, much space is given to the general history of 
this period, both by the mere statement of fact and by the abund- 
ance of stories of his forefathers’ experiences. There is no such 
profusion of historical notes in the records of the three generations 
immediately following. In their brief annals' they are barely 
saved from oblivion by little more than a genealogical list of the 
names of their representatives. However, in Paltiel, we again 
have a scion of the family who is favored by tradition; indeed 
so exceptionally favored, that his is the most conspicuous 
figure in the chronicle. Ahimaaz shows special satisfaction in 
telling the story of his remarkable career, which as Kaufmann 
holds,? may have inspired the elegy in which he is honored as the 
family’s most illustrious son. His greatness develops in 
Ifrikiya and Egypt, under the patronage of the Fatimite Caliph, 
Abu Tamim Maad, whom the chronicle recalls only by his sur- 
name, Al Muizz. The clear record begins with his elevation 
to the office of vizier. The traditions tracing his rise to this 
eminence, such as that which tells of his first meeting with 
Al Muizz,? who was in command of an Arabian army invading 
Italy, who laid siege to Oria, and led the survivors of the attack 
into captivity, singling out and favoring Paltiel, the descendant 
of the great Shephatiah, evidenced a confused knowledge of this 
prince’s life. If, as assumed, this captivity of Oria refers to that 
which occurred in 925, in which also the family of Donnolo4 
were taken to Sicily, the presence of Al Muizz is out of the question; 
he was not born until four years later (929).° There is no indica- 


1 Below, 87. 

2MGWJ 40, 588, 552. 

3 Below, 88. 

4 Above, 1 note 3. 

5 Quatremére, Journ. As. 1836, 3s. II 29, 401; Miiller, Der Islam, I 617. 


22 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


tion of his ever having led an expedition into Italy, either before 
or after he became Caliph. The conqueror of Oria, in question, 
is known to have been Jafar ibn Obaid, one of the distinguished 
commanders under the father of Al Muizz. 

We have no means of determining whether this confusion 
appeared in the earliest traditions of Paltiel’s fame, or arose 
in the course of transmission. Kaufmann sees a probable ex- 
planation of it in the fact that, when these traditions were 
forming, the Byzantine world resounded with the fame of 
Al Muizz’ amazing achievements.! Some substantial knowledge 
of his triumphant career, extending over almost a quarter of a 
century (952-976), must have been diffused among its people. 
Strongholds in Sicily, that had long resisted Arabian invasion, 
fell before his armies. Conquered Taormina” became Muizziah, 
in his honor; in Southern Italy itself, his victorious armies in 
command of Abul Husein were advancing and inspiring the fear 
that the entire Empire, so largely exposed to attack, could not 
long defend itself against them. At the zenith of his power, he 
was the acknowledged and dreaded organizer of brilliant victory. 
In minds that could not but be engrossed in this dominant 
personality among the sovereigns known to them, there was little 
room for the thought of the less imposing figures who carried 
his plans of conquest into execution, and were the actual com- 
manders of his armies. This vivid impression might easily have 
led to such popular belief as the chronicle expresses in mis- 
taking him for the commander of the Arabian armies in Italy. 
This initial mistake, however, must not be taken as an index 
to the value of all that is contained in this story of Paltiel. 
There is sufficient accuracy of detail to offset it. At the very 
outset, there is a true appreciation of one of the conspicuous 
traits of Al Muizz, his absorbing interest in astrology and 
fondness for its adepts.2 It is asa master of astrology that 
Paltiel is first befriended by him. Again the development of 
his power is in the main correctly traced; from the submission 

‘MGWJ 40, 530. 


> Quatremére, Journ. As., 1837, 64. 
3 Quatremére, 1837, 207. 


INTRODUCTION 23 | 


of Sicily, the first great acquisition of his reign, to the culmin- 
ating conquest of Egypt, six years before his death. 

While the chronicle is in error in naming the conquest of 
Ifrikiya one of his achievements, as though Fatimite power had 
not already been established there, with its seat of authority at 
Kairowan,' it shows at least logical adherence to its own point of 
view, that begins by simply declaring that the Caliph was in Italy, 
makes no attempt to go back of that fact, and seems to imply 
that the encampment there was the center of authority from 
which the creation of his domain proceeded. The emissaries of 
Sicily, as the nearest suppliants, would naturally be the first to 
appeal to him there. Having established his power in Sicily, a 
new task calls him to Ifrikiya, that proffers its allegiance to him. 
And here, finally, the envoys of Egypt implore him to extend his 
triumphant sovereignty over their country. Upon its fund- 
amental assumption, the story of conquest is consistently 
told. The statements that are clearly unhistorical are confined 
to the false assumption of Al Muizz’ presence at the conquest of 
Oria; of his rule, in person, over Sicily, and the confused enu- 
meration of his chief conquests. We almost lose sight of these 
errors, in the many details, in which there is complete agreement 
with the accounts of the Arabian and Byzantine historians. 
The expedition into Egypt is minutely described, although there 
is no mention of the years devoted to the preparation’ for it, 
corresponding practically word for word to what is accepted 
as the historical account of it. The omission of the evidence 
of opposition to the army of occupation, does not seriously 
mar its perception of the fact that this conquest was actually 
a bloodless one; a fact upon which all sources are agreed, counting 
the short-lived hostility of the Ikshid partisans,® of too little 
weight to be regarded as an appreciable interference with the 
peaceful investment of the country. Again, no fault can be 
found as to the accuracy of detail in the account of the Byzantine 
Embassy that sought audience with the Caliph. The author is 

1 Muir, The Caliphate (1915), 658. 


* Quatremére, 1836, 423; Lane-Poole, Egypt in the Middle Ages, 101. 
3’ DeGoeje, ZDMG 52, 75; Quatremére, J ourn. As. tbid. 


24 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


manifestly at great pains to do justice to this chapter in his famous 
ancestor’s life, to linger upon the lavishly magnificent setting of the 
royal court in which he commands. The amazing, artistic com- 
pleteness has no trace of disordered and fragmentary tradition. 
It shows a thorough familarity with what we already know of the 
elaborate ceremonialism of such Byzantine missions, and of the 
splendor of the Fatimite court, a splendor heretofore unknown 
in that fertile strip of country between Mauretania and Egypt, 
by the extraordinary display of which, as described in the chronicle, 
the Macedonian ambassador was to be impressed with the in- 
comparable wealth of the caliph. We cannot but note how 
closely it follows the stories that have come down to us, of such 
imperial missions sent from time to time to establish relations of 
amity between the Byzantine Empire and the Caliphate. 
In the days of Theophilos, in the year 833, the renowned John 
the Grammarian was sent to enter into diplomatic negotiations 
with Motassem. In this instance it was the representative of 
Byzantine opulence that amazed the Arabians with the display 
of rare treasures; by his assumed indifference to the disappearance 
of a costly ewer and basin, which he had shrewdly planned with 
the help of his attendants, and by other devices calculated to 
add to the wonder of the Saracens at the wealth of the Christians. 
Later, Zoe, the widow of Leo VI., Empress Regent during the 
minority of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, sought an alliance 
with Moktader through a similar embassy, the account of which 
gives particulars of the luxurious ceremonialism of the occasion, 
that are, almost to the letter, like those of the anecdote in the 
chronicle, excepting that it does not include the incident of the 
Ambassador’s refusal to be presented to the Caliph by a Jewish 
Master of the palace, and of his eventual acceptance of the sit- 
uation, in the confession of his unworthy malice and arrogance. 
In all probability, however, all such records are modelled after 
the story of the remarkable embassy by which this same Con- 
stantine, as Emperor, sought the friendship of Abd-al-Rahman III. 
(912-961), that was remembered above all others seen in the streets 
of his capital, to do homage to the ruler whose “fame pene- 
trated the most remote and barbarous regions of the globe.” 


INTRODUCTION 25 


The traditions of Ahimaaz are more comprehensive than any of 
these. They contain both the allusion to the device of the 
precious ewer and basin that is especially recalled in the one, 
and the priceless trappings and extravagant pleasures of the 
Saracen Court, that are emphasized in the other; and, as far as 
the latter is concerned, it bears upon an event that occurred 
in the time of Paltiel. In this passage, then, we may have the 
earliest Hebrew version of a popular tradition, that, nearly 
three centuries after the chronicle had been written, was still 
thought worthy of lengthy repetition in Abulfeda’s “ Abridgment 
of the History of Mankind” (1328). The sameness of vivid detail 
in such stories of diplomatic intercourse, varying only in the 
assignment of surpassing display, now to the Emperor and now 
to the Caliph, must have contributed to their diffusion and re- 
tention among the people, 

The commanding figure that advises and rules as vizier of 
Al Muizz is, in this Jewish tradition, Paltiel, of whom there is no 
mention in any other chronicle. In view of the general re- 
liability of the chronicle regarding the life of this caliph, we can- 
not deny this strange hero a substantial claim upon our attention. 
We must consider the position of Kaufmann! well taken; 
when discussing the importance of this part of the chronicle, 
as a contribution to the history of Fatimite Egypt, he holds that 
there must be historical foundation for this tradition. In the 
opinion of DeGoeje,” likewise, there can be no doubt that it has 
a basis of truth. He meets the difficulty by declaring that we 
must choose between discarding it as fictitious and worthless, 
or receiving it upon the assumption that Paltiel does appear in the 
histories, but under another name. Adopting the latter theory, 
he points out how very closely the account of Ahimaaz follows 
all that is said of the chief counsellor and most distinguished 
general of Al Muizz, Jauhar, a captive from Southern Italy, 
variously named in Arabian histories, the Roman, the Slav, the 

1 MGWJ 40, 540; ZDMG 51, 436 f. 

2ZDMG, 52, 75,79. Bacher, REJ 32, 148, “Aprés tous les émondages 
necessaires, il en reste encore assez pour que la situation de Paltiel paraisse 


comme extraordinairement éminente.’”’? Poznanski, REJ 48, 144, finds in the 
story of Paltiel ‘‘un noyau historique.”’ 


26 THE CHRONICLE.OF AHIMAAZ 


Sicilian, and always surnamed Al Katib, which is probably 
suggestive of his original position as secretary to Mansur, 
Al Muizz’ father. DeGoeje disposes of this well-known name 
by regarding it as nothing more than a surname, given by Al 
Muizz, in accordance with a custom of the day, by which favorite 
slaves were distinguished*as Lu’lu (pearl), Jauhar (jewel), Yaqut 
(ruby), upon being converted to Islam. Kaufmann had also, 
but less confidently, inclined to a similar theory when he saw 
this ancestor of Ahimaaz hidden in the name of Ibn Killis,’ 
the Bagdad apostate, who, having been driven from eminent 
service under the Ikshid sovereign Kafur (966), by his vizier’s 
intrigues, won the favor of Al Muizz, and of his son Al Aziz, 
under whom he served as vizier for fifteen years. 

But the theory as applied by these authorities has a serious 
weakness, as DeGoeje” admits, in that it takes no account of the 
hero’s loyalty to Judaism. Between a Jauhar,*® whose adoption of 
Mohammedanism is beyond question and an Ibn Killis,* about 
whose apostasy there is equal certainty, and a Paltiel who, amid all 
the rewards of his high station is conspicuously true to his an- 
cestral faith, there is no resemblance. This theory takes us 
too far afield and gives no promise of penetrating the mystery. 
The strict adherence to the text may suggest a solution. Asa 
master of astrology,’ in which capacity he strongly appealed to 
Al Muizz, he may have been the caliph’s specially trusted 
adviser, a sort of power behind the throne, not generally counted 
among the officials in power, but through his confidential relations 
with the caliph, actually determining adminstrative policy, 
planning campaigns of conquest, practically serving as vizier. 
Further supporting the plausibility of Ahimaaz’ story, is the 
fact that Al Muizz was a remarkably liberal and tolerant sov- 
ereign, ranking high as a prince zealous for justice and devoted 
to learning, to which the chronicle bears witness with its eminent 
case in point, as it does also to the same spirit of broad-minded 


1 Kaufmann, MGWJ 40, 536. 

2? DeGoeje ZDMG 82, 80. 

’ Quatremére, Journ. As., 1837, 44. 
* Quatremére, Journ. As., 1837, 186. 
5 Below, 89. 


INTRODUCTION 27 


administration in Al Aziz, his son and successor; nor does it over- 
look the shadow of the picture, the bitter animosity! of the native 
officials against the Jewish court favorite. With Paltiel, the 
slanders fail of their purpose.? The favor and affection of the 
Caliph are intensified; the conspirators are overwhelmed with 
shame. The fate of this favorite is not like that of others 
chosen by Al Aziz,*? a Jewish vizier in Syria and a Christian in 
Eygpt, in defense of whom he almost lost his life, and whom 
popular clamor and intolerance finally compelled him to remove in 
disgrace. 

While Kaufmann and DeGoeje agree that, in the main, the 
chronicle tells a story remarkably free from historical inaccuracy, 
they are certain that its concluding anecdote’ is altogether 
misplaced; that the prediction, read in the suddenly vanishing 
stars, of the death, in rapid succession within the year, of three 
kings, must have been made to Al Muizz and not to his son, 
DeGoeje holds that only by that assumption can the astrologer’s 
vision be made to include not only the death of the three kings, 
but also that of Al Muizz and Paltiel, all of whom died within the 
year in question. We may, however, question, with Kaufmann, 
whether the message of the stars was made to include Al Muizz 
still in power and the astrologer himself. Post eventum knowledge 
of all these details may be responsible for the opinion of these 
authorities. If we follow the tradition of the chronicle that Al 
Muizz,° some time before his death, called his son to the throne, 
implying that he lived long enough to see the continuance of his 
family’s power at the hands of his successor, guided by the coun- 
sel of Paltiel, there is no error in ascribing this event to the time 
of Al Aziz, even though it might be necessary to ascribe it to the 
first year of his reign. Moreover, reading into the interpretation 
of the astrologer, the exact knowledge of history acquired 
_ through subsequent study is not warranted in the light of the 

1 Kremer, Culturgeschichte, I, 188; Lane Poole, Egypt in the M. A., 120; 
Below, 95. 

2 Below, 96. 

8 Lane-Poole, Egypt in the M. A., 120. 


4 Kaufmann, ZDMG 41, 442. 
’ Below, 95. Quatremére, Journ. As., 1837, 202. 


4 


28 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


usual vagueness of oracles and similar revelations of the future. 
The year 976 proved to be the fateful year. In rapid succession, 
beginning with the death of Al Muizz at the close of 975, there 
occurred the death of John,! Emperor of Byzantium, who, re- 
turning from an expedition to the East, was poisoned by con- 
spirators; of Al Hakam, the Caliph of the West; of Rokn, the 
Caliph of Bagdad, and of Paltiel. 

As we reach the end of the story in the impassioned tribute to 
the man whom the great Caliph had so signally honored, in the 
survey of his far-reaching jurisdiction over the provinces of the 
Caliphate, in the recollection of his worthy preeminence as 
Nagid? of the Jews of the country, we are the more convinced 
that this brilliant career is not the creation of irresponsible 
fancy. Conceding that Ahimaaz as a man of letters with some 
knowledge of the current descriptions of the glories of Ara- 
bian power almost a century before his time, availed himself 
of apposite records that would supplement his fragmentary 
annals, incorporating what was amply warranted by the shattered 
testimony regarding the exceptional eminence of Paltiel, we do 
not thereby impair his chronicle’s value as a source of sound infor- 
mation. It would still seem true that there was enough family 
tradition to make possible just such elaboration, not at all out 
of porportion to the real distinction of the great ancestor. That 
Ahimaaz will not be bound by the severe restrictions of the 
crude annalist is more evident here than in any other section 
of the chronicle, when he further dwells upon this happy memory 
in a noteworthy elegy.? 

Following closely upon this life-story of Paltiel, is the account 
of another renowned scion of the family, Samuel, a cousin‘ of 
Paltiel, who flourished at the close of the tenth century, in 
Capua, as the minister of finance, with supervision over all de- 
partments of government under the Lombard princes of that 
duchy. In the latter, the setting is naturally less brilliant than 
that of the former, and the story is much more briefly told, but 

‘ Finlay, 2, 360. 

* Poznanski, REJ 48, 144; Below, 99. 


3 Below, 97. 
4 Below, 97. 


INTRODUCTION 29 


it shows the same accurate knowledge of its locale. Here again 
the chronicle brings to light a man of whom we have had no knowl- 
edge, but there is an additional reason for accepting what is 
said of him. The obscurity from which the earlier traditions had 
to be extricated could not, to the same extent, have prevailed in 
the recollections of the life of the author’s own grandfather. 
For these facts there was no long and perilous line of transmission. 
They were gathered from the vivid memories of those who could 
testify as eye witnesses, his father and the elders of the community 
of Capua in which he had spent his youth. And before leaving 
his birthplace for Oria, he himself surely saw the thriving life to 
which the Jews attained there; so that this tradition of the 
chronicle is, in part, a glowing description of his personal 
experience. We are therefore constrained to add the name of 
Samuel b. Hananeel to the list of the illustrious Jews whose 
service to the state brought them the favor of princes. 

If this work of Ahimaaz has real value for the biographical 
notes in which it abounds, and for the historical episodes relating 
to great men and events in a vital chapter of Byzantine history, 
and in the resplendent era of Fatimite ascendancy, it serves 
equally well, both with its explicit and its implied information, 
to set forth the social and political conditions under which the 
Jews lived in Southern Italy and neighboring sections of the 
Byzantine Empire during the two centuries of the rise and fall 
of the Basilian dynasty. Amittai and his sons are men of learning 
and of letters, masters of public instruction, and, at the same 
time, students of secret wisdom and adepts in its use. Likewise 
their contemporary, Abu Aaron, is remembered for his power to 
triumph over and exorcise evil spirits, but also, and at greater 
length, for his vast knowledge of Talmudic Law, and his wise 
application of it, for the inspiration of his example in his ardent 
encouragement of the schools. This double view-point is typical 
of the traditions of the chronicle, and controls Ahimaaz himself. 
Even in the case of Paltiel, whose life was so largely that of a man 
of affairs, attention is divided between the mystic and astrologer 
and the practical administrator, embodied in the same character. 
It reveals now a yielding to superstition and now a vigorous as- 


30 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


sertion of intelligence. Occasionally, as was true of Hai Gaon’, 
an exceptional mind rises sufficiently above this theory and 
practice of mysticism, to denounce it for what itis. The one-sided 
judgment passed upon the intellectual activity of these mediaeval 
Jewish communities, is born of the exclusive consideration of 
their weakness for superstition, and takes no account of the 
strength that also manifests itself in defense of true learning 
and intelligent living. There is a strong temptation to hold to it 
upon the ground that, according to the popular verdict, all things 
Byzantine are barbarous,” and that the stream of Jewish life in 
that mediaeval world could not have risen higher than its 
source. But to insist upon it is to ignore the evidence that 
proves such an assumption false. 

The depravity frequently conspicuous in Byzantine life, 
led Graetz* to believe that the same conditions must have 
prevailed among the Jews who were a part of it, and that there- 
fore nothing noteworthy could have been produced by them; 
that in the foulness of their environment, they could at best have 
developed nothing more than mediocre ability as sluggish pupils 
of foreign masters of learning; that, accordingly, their sages 
were the butt of the ridicule of the sages of the Babylonian 
Academies. In his opinion, the period between Shabbethai 
Donnolo and the author of Tana debe Eliahu could not have been 
anything but a void, unrelieved by any Jewish literary or intel- 
lectual effort of particular value. As he knew of no work compara- 
ble to the Tachkemoni,° that, in these two centuries, might seem 
to have been inspired by it, he believed that all possible evidence 
had been obtained, and concluded that this was a dismal period 
of mental stagnation. This is indeed an extreme use of the 
argumentum e silentio. Giidemann,® less arbitrarily, reaches 
substantially the same conclusion as to the feeble intellectual 
striving of the Jews of the Byzantine Empire. In his analysis 


1 Graetz, 6, 4. 

? Gelzer, Byz. Kulturgesch, 2 ff.; C. Neumann, Die Weltstellung d. byz. 
Reiches vor d. Kruezztigen, 18; Freeman, Historical Essays, III, 231 ff. 

§ Graetz, 5, 315, 

4 Graetz, 5, 318. 

5 Above, 3. 

® Gesch. II, 55. 


INTRODUCTION 31 


of the Tana debe Eliahu, in which he sees theindications of the end 
of the crude, first period of Jewish history in Italy, and of the 
beginning of an age of scientific activity, he assigns to the Italian 
communities a place between those of Spain and France, to 
explain the contrast that he finds between their respective stages 
of culture. Whereas the Jews of Spain were stimulated by the 
culture of the Arabians; and those of France, through their isola- 
tion on account of difficulty of communication with the Orient, 
thrust upon their own resources, determined to give all possible 
attention to the preservation of their traditions, the Jews of Italy 
were not influenced by either of these forces. Amid general 
degradation, they had no incentive to culture; besides they were 
not familiar enough with Arabic, to make use of its literature. 
And as they were not isolated from Babylon and Africa, the great 
sources of Jewish learning, they simply depended upon them, 
confining themselves to an insignificant study of the Talmud. 
This opinion of conditions as they were in Italy in the eleventh 
century when, as Giidemann says, a day of enlightenment 
was beginning to dawn, would probably have seemed to him to 
apply with greater force to the earlier centuries that, in his 
judgment, were not enlivened by the demands of the awakening 
mind. As far as Jewish life in the Byzantine Empire is concerned 
there is no recognition, in these opinions, of its claim to more than 
passing notice. The method of study is obviously at fault that 
makes what is known of Rome and the West serve as the basis of 
generalization about the conditions in the Empire of the East, 
loosely judging the one by the other, as though Rome were still 
the chief seat of power, and Byzantine sovereignty, centered in 
Constantinople, negligible. The fact is that the life emanating 
from this new capital had very little in common with that which 
looked to Rome; the former capital had rapidly yielded supremacy 
to the new center of authority, that realized the ambition of 
Constantine, its founder; that developed its own history of more 
than a thousand years. It is a far cry from opinions so crudely 
determined to that of Zunz,! who attributes the preservation of 
the traditions of Jewish learning in Italy, as in other lands, when 


LGV 323, 373f,. 


32 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


the schools of the Geonim were closed in 1040,! to the fact that 
for centuries the Jews of Italy under Byzantine rule had thoroughly 
prepared themselves for such a task; and to that of Krauss and 
Eppenstein, among more recent authorities, who prove that the 
Byzantine period of Jewish history can no longer be decried as a 
time of notorious degradation and intellectual poverty. It is 
the more trustworthy judgment, resting upon the discoveries 
of half a century, unknown to the earlier students, documents 
that have given new impetus to the study of this chapter of 
imperial history, that have compelled the revision of our in- 
terpretation of its life. In addition to the aid of the new sources? 
bearing upon the general history of the Byzantine Empire, later 
scholars have had the testimony of the chronicle of Ahimaaz, 
which has been further supported by the “Hoard of Hebrew 
Manuscripts”? almost simultaneously unearthed by Schechter in 
the Geniza of the old Synagog at Fostat, near Cairo. The in- 
formation gained from them easily leads us to believe, with 
Krauss * that “the influence of the Byzantine Jews on Judaism in 
general is much greater than has heretofore been acknowledged.”’ 
It is now more evident that there was in Byzantine life not only 
naive reveling in the supernatural but also rational yearning for 
and cultivation of knowledge. 

This is true especially of the period through which Ahimaaz 
traces his lineage, from the time that the strong hand of Basil I. 
arrested the decline of the Empire, and replaced fatalistic 
corruption with vigorous aspiration. Superstition looms large 
in the story but it does not crowd out the interest in higher 
pursuits. Emperor and people had frequent recourse to the 
arts of the astrologer and the representatives of secret wisdom, 
but they also encouraged the study of medicine, philosophy, 
grammar and jurisprudence. Amid the vicissitudes of the two 
centuries of Basilian rule, education was at no time utterly 
abandoned. It is true that schools were not always maintained 

1 Graetz, 5, 345ff. 

2 Below, 58. 

’ Adler, Jews in many Lands, 145; Ginzberg, Geonica I, IX. Schechter, 


Studies in Judaism, II, 1-30. 
4 Krauss, Byzantine Empire, JE III, 450. 


INTRODUCTION 33 


with equal ardor. They had their days of conspicuous glory; 
and, under stress of tumult, they languished. The conditions 
may be understood as incident to an age of transition, in which 
a growing spirit of intelligence was contending with deeply 
intrenched powers of darkness. Photius, the man of learning, 
the gifted and prolific writer, the eminent teacher surrounded by 
students from all parts of the world, in his writings, mingling 
stories of the miraculous with discourses on the principles of phi- 
losophy, is representative of the intellectual struggle among the 
people of his day. There must have been enough popular 
interest in teachers and schools to make such a master possible. 
Between this towering figure at the beginning of the period under 
consideration and that of the “Prince of Philosophers,” Psellus, 
at its close, there always were teachers, giving instruction in 
private and public schools. The studies of Giesebrecht, continuing 
the labors of Muratori and Tiraboschi, establish this fact be- 
yond question. His conclusion, bearing upon educational ac- 
tivity in the Byzantine Empire as far back as the eighth century, 
is “ Ex eo tempore non in majoribus modo urbibus, sed et in villis 
vicisque scholae publicae erant in quibus primis quidem littera- 
rum elementis pueri erudiebantur; neque minus certum est, eo- 
dem tempore inter Longobardos doctores exstitisse qui grammat- 
ici vocantur, artibus liberalibus pro temporum illorum condi- 
tione non mediocriter instructos.”! It implies simply the fair 
reading of such contemporaneous testimony as that of Gerbert, 
who, in a visit to Italy at the end of the tenth century, is im- 
pressed with the country as a field for the purchase of books; 
and that of Wipo, the chaplain of Conrad II., who laments 
Germany’s marked intellectual inferiority to Italy where “the 
entire youth is sent to sweat in the schools.” 

The investigations” of our own day have but emphasized the 


1 Giesebrecht, De litterarum studiis apud Italos primis medii aevi saeculis, 
7,8; Ozanam, Documents inédits pour servir a Vhistoire littéraire de VItalie 
depuis 8 au 18 siecle, 5-13; Balzani, Early Chroniclers of Italy, 181; Wattenbach, 
Deutschlands Quellengeschichte im Mittelalter, 7 Ed., 307, 347; Taylor, The 
Mediaeval Mind, 248; Bikélas, La Gréce Byzantine et Moderne, 69 ff; Gothein, 
Die Culturentwickelung Siid-Italiens, 2 ff. 

2 Taylor, The Med. Mind, 248. 


34 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


fact that in Byzantium, “there was always some demand for 
instruction in Grammar and Law; that there never ceased to be 
schools conducted by laymen for laymen, where instruction in 
matters profane and secular was imparted.’’ Freeman’ has not 
overshot the mark in saying that profound scholars and acute 
theologians were the natural product of the soil. The schools 
were in an especially flourishing condition under Constantine VII. 
The universities at Constantinople and at Salerno? were widely 
known centers of learning. This stimulation of scholarly ac- 
tivity gave distinction to an entire century, of which Krumbacher? 
says: “Auf das Zeitalter des Photius folgt das weniger durch 
originelle Erzeugnisse als durch grossartige Sammelthitigkeit 
hervorragende zehnte Jahrhundert, das man als das Jahrhundert 
der Enzyklopidien bezeichnen kénnte.”” Granted that the learned 
men of Byzantium, in possession of the treasures of classical an- 
tiquity, generally showed but little individuality in presenting 
them, mostly confining themselves to collections of extracts, to 
notes and summaries; these compilations, by their number and by 
their literary merit, point to the existence of a public that, to such 
appreciable extent, encouraged intellectual life—the people of an 
Empire whose capital, “in the history of mediaeval civilization 
before the eleventh century, played a réle analogous to that of 
Athens and Rome in antiquity, its influence extending over the 
whole world, pre-eminently the city.”’* This was especially true 
in the tenth century, the “Golden Age of Byzantine history.” 
Under its centralized depotism that,® “in an age when order and 
freedom were irreconcilable, was positively the best government 
in the world, life and property were most secure; art, literature, 
commerce and general civilization, flourishing.” In the judgment 
of Sandys,° “of the extant remains of Byzantine Literature, apart 

1 Freeman, Historical Essays III, 236. 

2 “To the Jews is largely due the building up of the school of Salerno which 
we find flourishing in the 10th century,” White, Warfare of Science with 
Theology, II, 33; Abrahams, Jewish Life in Middle Ages, XIX; Bédarride, Les 
Juifs en France, etc., 106. 

* Krumbacher, Gesch. d. byz. Lit., 16. 

* Munro and Sellery, Mediaeval Civilization, 212, 223. 


* Freeman, Historical Essays, III, 274. 
6 Sandys, J, 424. 


INTRODUCTION 35 


from theological works, nearly half belong to the domain of 
scholarship in the widest sense of the term.’’ The popular 
intel igence that demanded schools and teachers, also manifested 
itself in other practical directions. In Sicily, it was quick to 
recognize the more equitable system of taxation of the Arabian 
conquerors, as contrasted with the extortionate policy of the emper- 
ors. Again, it boldly protested against the notorious and defiant 
shamelessness of the Emperor Constantine VI. and prevailed 
against him. 

In addition to the impulses from within to promote culture, 
vitalized by the contemplation of the classic heritage, there were 
powerful influences from without, that disputed the field with 
barbarism in the Byzantine Empire. The Arabian conquests 
upon its soil became so many points of direct contact with the 
astounding civilization of the Caliphate. Furthermore, the 
Empire lay in the very path of this triumphant power and irresist- 
ible culture,t whether the approach was from the East or 
from the West. It surely could not have prevented the pene- 
tration of such forces. Cultural isolation from the not very 
distant Ommeyyad domain in Spain, would have been as diffi- 
cult as a geographical one. If the emperors had in mind only 
the political advantage to be gained by an alliance with such 
dominant power, the effects of the friendly relations could not 
actually have been so restricted. An embassy like that of 
Constantine Porphyrogenitus to Abd-er-Rahman III., would 
result in much more than an assurance of the great Caliph’s favor. 
The envoys’ impressions of the glories of Cordova must have 
contributed materially to its fame in Byzantium. ‘The city that, 
especially under Al Hakem II., the renowned patron of letters, 
was the foremost meeting place of the world’s students and writers, 
must have roused to emulation also its Byzantine visitors and 
students, by the instruction of its schools and libraries, by the 
tangible evidences of its administration, in the productive 
fields, in its well-drained and lighted streets. 

In this society, “the study of letters had become the popular 


1 Scott, Moor. Emp. in Europe, I 34. 


36 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


and absorbing pursuit.”+ Furthermore, when Alexandria was no 
longer open to the commerce of the western Caliphate, its subjects 
were amply indemnified by the hospitable reception which they 
habitually received from the people of Constantinople. “It 
was a judicious and enlightened policy,” and one whose impor- 
tant influence on every branch of art and learning cannot be 
estimated by the material prosperity, however great, which its 
institution conferred, that dictated the alliance, and preserved 
the close relations long existing between the princes of Moorish 
Spain and the sovereigns of Byzantium.” The outstanding feature 
of Arabian progress among mediaeval nations, was the intellectual 
impetus which it gave. The predatory hordes “effected a great 
intellectual revolution in every country which submitted to their 
sway. By precept and example they aroused the emulation and 
rewarded the efforts of all who struggled to escape from the 
fetters of ignorance which had been riveted by the superstition 
and prejudice of ages passed in ignominious servitude.’* We 
cannot assume that such effects of their invasion were un- 
known in the Eastern Empire alone. In Southern Italy where 
there was direct contact with Greeks and Arabs, there must 
have been a decided penetration of the fertilizing influence of 
their respective civilizations. They may have been advanced 
both by eager acceptance and by unconscious assimilation. 
Granted that there was more of the latter than of the former, 
the result was none the less real and noteworthy. 

As a part of the population of the Empire, the Jews must be 
similarly judged. Where forces of education were at work, they 
could not have given all their strength to the inanities of su- 
perstition. All that we know of Jewish life under similar 
conditions warrants the belief that in this instance also, they ar- 
dently seized the opportunities for intellectual exertion. This 
general observation now has something more than probability 
to commend it. The severe verdict of Giidemann on the Jews 
of Mediaeval Italy seems to have been less firmly spoken by him 

1 Scott, J, 671. 

* Scott, 7, 176. 


3 Scott, J, 14. 
4 Balzani, Karly Chroniclers . . ., 181. 


INTRODUCTION 37 


than that in which he assigns to them preeminence among those 
who made of Italy the great entrepdt of the literary treasures 
of the Orient, as it was of the commerce between the East and 
the West. There is no trace of faint praise in the words, “ Durch 
das ganze Mittelalter hindurch, das man ja lingst aufgehért hat 
als eine Zeit der Stagnation zu betrachten, zeigt sich eine stetige, 
dem allgemeinen Culturfortschritte parallellaufende Fortbewe- 
gung unter den Italienischen Juden, durch welche sie vorber- 
eitet werden, um in die neuere Zeit als die ersten unter ihren 
europdischen Glaubensgenossen mit Verstindniss and Begeist- 
erung einzugehen.”! More comprehensive but equally positive 
is the statement of the leading authority on Byzantine-Jewish 
studies of the present day, “In keinem Lande Europas, auch in 
Spanien und Italien nicht, waren die Juden so innig mit der 
Sprache und Kultur ihres Heimatlandes verwachsen als in 
Byzanz—Kein Land in Europa hat in der Sprache, in der Poesie, 
in der Liturgie, in den rabbinisch-religidsen Schriften der Juden 
solch tiefe Spuren zuriickgelassen als das mittelalterliche By- 
zanz.’* Greek Jews, especially from Constantinople, frequently 
visited the academies of Babylon. Hai Gaon was indebted to 
them for his knowledge of Greek. 

In the light of the traditions of Ahimaaz, this view is the 
only defensible one. As a whole, the family record is the story 
of a succession of sages and masters of instruction, eminent 
men of letters during the eventful Basilian period. As such 
it leaves no doubt as to the cultural status of the communities 
that encourage and honor these masters. The visit * of a sage 
evokes their fervid hospitality. There is a general appreciation 
of his ancestors’ liturgical poetry. From the schools of Oria* 
their native city, the chief seat of learning, the light radiates 
into the neighboring communities. The lapse’ from the high 
- standard of learning and reverence is lamented as a fatal offense. 
It is a story of thriving communities; there is no suggestion of 

1 Giidemann, JJ, 7. 

2 Krauss, Studien, 99. 

3 Below, 64. 


4 Below, 66. 
5 Below, 87. 


38 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


difficulties of communication between one city and another, 
between them and the capital, or between one country and another. 
Abu Aaron is not hindered in his travels from his home in Bagdad. 
Wayfaring! and pilgrimages are mentioned as of common oc- 
currence, with nothing to interfere with them, except the danger 
to the caravans of being plundered. Furthermore, the conditions 
of life reflect varying influences as the cities are ruled in turn 
by Lombard prince, Byzantine emperor, or Arabian conqueror. 
The author himself, writing his chronicle as the Basilian dynasty 
comes to an end, shows, in the highly developed form of his work, 
the literary acumen resulting from contact with at least three 
influences, that of Jewish tradition, of Byzantine literary practice 
(acrostic hymn), and of the Arabian (rimed prose). The 
expressed desire of Ahimaaz to give an intelligible account of his 
ancestry, justifies the inference that, in his choice of this form of 
narrative, he was guided by the preference of the poeple for 
whom he wrote. He may, both for the form and the matter of 
his work, be regarded as representative of Jewish communal 
life that had had sufficient intellectual discipline, to value the 
memory of its sages and poets so highly. 

The chronicle is an important document not only for its 
direct evidence relating to the family of Amittai. -The lines of 
the story are admittedly limited in scope, confined to the ex- 
periences of one family, whose activities were mostly devoted 
to school and synagog. Paltiel, the great counsellor of Al Muizz 
and his son, and Samuel, the minister of finance in Capua, are 
the exceptions to the rule. But its indirect evidence for the 
general social and political milieu, is equally important. 
The larger story is easily read between the lines. Even if the 
traditions did not actually describe noteworthy communal 
prosperity, made possible in a measure through the distinguished 
service of a Paltiel, or Samuel, they cannot be understood as 
records of experience wholly detached and different from that of 
the mass of the people. The very existence of the schools in 
which these men taught, and of the literature they produced 
during eight generations, is conditioned by a social order 


1 Below, 65. Abrahams, Book of Delight, 122. 


INTRODUCTION 39 


essentially free from privation and oppression; in which alone 
the yearning for higher mental and spiritual nourishment can so 
freely express itself. A more comprehensive account of the life 
of which these men were a part would undoubtedly have had 
much to say of its material phase, of the commercial and other 
occupations of the workaday world in which the sustenance of 
their culture was obtained. The general experience epitomized 
in this Jewish document distinctly reflects the favorable conditions 
in the Byzantine Empire that made it possible. Upon its 
authority we have the more reason to believe that there were 
strong liberalizing forces at work, effecting a substantial measure 
of freedom throughout the land. 

It is generally believed that Italy,! throughout its history, holds 
an exceptional place among the nations of Europe for its tolerance 
towards the Jews. The especially favored explanation of it is, 
that the country was divided into many principalities, later 
republics, their energies all bent upon destroying one another. 
Giidemann’s clear statement of it leaves the impression that, 
until the fifteenth century, such anarchic conditions weakened 
the strong arm of government that might otherwise have exerted 
itself in persecution. It does not even hint at the existence of 
the centralized Byzantine administration that, for centuries, 
prevailed in Longobardia, the territory of the rival princes. It 
is under this very power that the family of Ahimaaz lives most of 
its life. But to distinguish politically and historically between 
Lombard and Byzantine Italy, is not to deny the substantial 
accuracy of the estimate of the country’s preeminence. The 
chronicle of Ahimaaz bears witness to it. What is said by 
Abrahams,’ of Italy “as the scene in all ages of close literary 
friendships between Jews and Christians such as no other coun- 
try could show in the same profusion,” he verifies by an instance 
from this very period of its history, the friendship between Don- 
nolo and Saint Nilus. 

The spirit of that generation could not have languished as 
Byzantine civilization advanced in its Golden Age. The view, 


1 Depping, Les Juifs dans le Moyen Age, 101. 
2 Abrahams, Jewish Life in the M. A., 419. 


40 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


at close range, that the chronicle gives of Jewish literary activity 
in the Byzantine Empire, discloses much more than halting 
receivers of the learning of the Geonim. There is original 
and independent effort in the devotion to and the elaboration 
of the Piyyut.!. That the Byzantine Jews gloried in this contribu- 
tion to our Literature, Ahimaaz plainly records as he tells of the 
days to which we assign its vigorous growth. Shall we ignore 
their estimate of this distinctively Byzantine Jewish product? 
Is it a weak link in the chain of Jewish literary tradition? The 
prolific labors of Jannai and Kalir, of their colleagues and succes- 
sors, affected Jewish life far beyond their own time and country. 
The liturgical poem is not the only claim of these mediaeval 
communities to special consideration. There is originality also 
in their promulgation of the usual learning of the central 
academies in Babylon and in Palestine; a characteristic freedom 
of discourse and exposition in public instruction, is justly at- 
tributed to them. But, whereas this manifestation of independent 
intellect is not to be overlooked, it is less noteworthy than its 
very vigorous expression in the abundance of the sacred poetry of 
the synagog. Original productivity along the more familiar 
traditional lines of Jewish learning cannot be the only test of 
eminent cultural achievement. ‘There was an insistent demand 
for it also in the development of the synagog’s liturgy. We 
cannot with reason think of this contribution as a wide and sense- 
less departure from Jewish tradition. Issuing from Palestine, 
where the more emotional appeal of the Haggada had inspired 
the pioneers in this form of literature, it grew to maturity 
upon Byzantine soil. Its spiritual appeal was probably the 
determining factor responsible for its ardent cultivation at the 
hands of the Jews of that country. 

The inclination to cherish such an inheritance would be 
especially strong where the atmosphere was charged with 
encouragement of it, as it was when the liturgy of the dominant 
Byzantine church was so elaborately developed. Here it 
set its own standards with astounding freedom, and became a 
unique embodiment of intellectual and spiritual vigor. As a 


1 Above, 6; Berliner JJ, 165. 


INTRODUCTION 41 


contribution to Jewish Liturgy, both in quantity and quality 
it cannot be negligible. That the liturgy of the synagog has been 
a vitalizing factor of signal importance in Jewish life, is beyond 
question. Emphasizing this fact, L. Ginzberg! protests against the 
misunderstanding of the importance of the activities of the Geonim, 
for this cogent reason among others, that “upon no other de- 
partment has their influence been more important than upon 
the Liturgy.” To do justice to the labors of the Paitanim, 
we should accept the conclusion of Eppenstein in his study 
of the history and literature of the Geonic Age,” “Wenn die 
Palastinenser auch nicht die Geistesschirfe der Babylonier in 
dem Lehrverhandlungen hervortreten liessen, so haben sie dafiir 
aus der Tiefe ihres Gemiites die sch6nen Perlen der vielgestaltigen 
Gebete emporgeholt.” Ahimaaz is our trustworthy guide through 
this domain of the poetic soul reveling in the latitude of ar- 
tistic and didactic fantasy; an illumined soul that would 
demand zeal for the traditions of learning and piety, that alone 
would account for such a chapter of intellectual progress as 
Zunz finds, from the emergence of the Byzantine Jews from 
obscurity in the eighth century to the time of flourishing study 
in the tenth, when the sages of Bari were the peers of the Geonim. 
In the opinion of Eppenstein, the dictum of Graetz: ? “ Uberhaupt 
haben die italienischen Juden in keinem Fache Meisterschaft 
erlangt; sie blieben stets fleissige Jiinger fremder Lehrer. 
In Babylonien machte man sich daher iiber die Weisen Roms,” 
d. h. Italiens, weidlich lustig,” must be abandoned for, “die 
Gegenteilige Schilderung in der Chronik des Achimaaz von Oria.”’ 

Again the memoirs of Ahimaaz are almost entirely free from 
evidences of active antagonism on the part of the people or the 
government. They indeed have their records of sorrow. The 
Jews during these two centuries naturally did not escape the 
visitations that frequently convulsed the land. Pestilence, cap- 
tivity at the hands of the invader, disaster through political 
upheaval; but, in the main, there is nothing to indicate that 
they suffered as the victims of a sustained policy of repression. 

1 Geonica I, VIII. 


2MGWJ 52. 
’ Graetz, 5, 332 n. 


42 THE CHRONICLE .OF AHIMAAZ 


The reign of Basil I. is vividly remembered as the only time in 
which they had such sorrow. In its sadness it stands out in the 
record. It is always designated as the persecution. This 
tradition bears out the view that mediaeval Italy was conspicuous 
for its liberal treatment of the Jews. The fact that the historians 
of the day seldom single them out for mention and that in the 
code of the Lombards! no special legislation refers to them, may 
well prove as Berliner argues, that there was no general per- 
secution of them. The difficulties of government in the midst 
of endless clashes between principalities, or between ecclesi- 
astical factions, each seeking its own gain, while the way was 
thereby opened to the plundering invaders, may have crowded out 
all thought of harassing the Jews. From the beginning of the 
sixth century when the Lombard princes rose to power, their 
internecine wars were almost incessant. Italy therefore became 
“une foule de petits états plus occupés & se guerroyer les uns les 
autres qu’a régler les droits de leurs sujets.”’? In this state of 
political chaos there may have been respite for the Jews. The 
conditions are aptly summarized by Reinach,® “Les Lombards 
qui succédérent aux Grecs dans le nord de I’Italie traitérent 
les Juifs avec douceur; il faut venir jusqu’au carolingien Louis II. 
pour trouver un édit d’expulsion (885) inspiré par le clergé et 
qui ne fut pas d’ailleurs exécuté. Bientdt d’ailleurs, le morcelle- 
ment politique de la péninsule les ravages des Arabes et des 
Normands, la lutte de la papauté et de l’empire allemand dé- 
tournérent des Juifs l’attention des gouvernements et du clergé 
et leur permirent de vivre cachés, c’est-d-dire assez heureux.”’ 

But we cannot accept this negative explanation as adequate. 
There must have been a more substantial basis for this undeniable 
freedom. It is more probably due to the position which the 

1 Berliner, II 6: ‘‘als die anfangs noch arianische Longobarden in Italien 
eindrangen, wurde das Recht der Longobarden eingefiihrt in welchem zwar der 
Juden selbst nicht erwaihnt wird, aus welchem Umstande aber gefolgert werden 
darf, dass jede Ausnahmestellung fiir sie wegfiel.”’ 

Dresdner, Kultur und Sittengeschichte der Italienischen Geistlichkeit im 10 
und 11 Jahrhundert (1890), 16. 

2 Bédarride, 62ff. 

3 Histoire, 84. 


INTRODUCTION 43 


Jews had attained as leaders in commerce.’ As such, they had 
become indispensable to the people. Upon occasion even the 
stringency of the Feudal law was relaxed in their favor, that 
they might freely engage in the country’s commerce. The 
general statement of Roscher’ is applicable also here: “ Es haben 
die Juden im frithen Mittelalter ein grosses Bediirfniss der 
Volkswirtschaft befriedigt, welches lange Zeit kein Anderer 
befriedigen konnte; das Bediirfniss eines gewerbmissigen Han- 
delstriebes.”’ They were the commercial intermediaries acceptable 
to both Christian and Moslem, to the one who demanded the 
products of the Orient and to the other who controlled the lands 
that produced the luxuries,—since they had no religious affiliation 
with either.? Even in more barbarous sections of the mediaeval 
world, it was not unusual to find the non-enforcement of restrictive 
measures against them, and forthesamereason. “II faut croire’’ 
says Bédarride,* “qu il était plus facile aux rois visigothes, avec 
la haine le plus féroce contre les Juifs, de concevoir de pareilles 
lois que de les faire exécuter. I] manquait a ces mésures, la 
sanction donnée par les populations au milieu desquelles les 
Juifs étaient répandus. Or ces populations avaient besoin des 
services que leur rendirent les Juifs par leur industrie.” The 
same explanation is to be given, according to Depping,° for the 
marked favor shown by Louis le Débonnaire to the Jews, and 
for the refusal of the authorities of Lyons to enter into the 
persecution demanded by Agobard,® insisting upon a rigorous 
separation of Jews from Christians. “Comment aurait on opéré 

1 Jacobs, Jewish Contributions to Civilization, 190. 

2 Roscher, Ansichten der Volkswirtschaft, II 327. 

3 Cunningham, Western Civilization, II 49. 

4 Bédarride, 32. 

5 Les Juifs dans le Moyen Age, 45. 

6 Agobard, De Insolentia Judaeorum, 61. “Die Juden im Westreiche 
hatten michtige Beschiitzer bei Hofe- schon gegen Agobard, und so geschah 
es dass zu Epernay auch der wider sie gerichtete Artikel des Konzils keine 
Aufnahme fand.”’ Diimmler, Gesch. des Ostfrdnkischen Reichs, I, 281. 

Kaiser Ludwig, 828, giebt einigen Kaufleuten ein Privilegium; er bestimmt 
—dass niemand sie beunruhigen oder verleumden—soll; ‘sed liceat eis sicut 
Judaeis, partibus palatii nostri fideliter deservire.’ 


Aronius, Regesten zur Gesch. der Juden im frénkischen und deutschen Reiche 
bis zum Jahre 1273 (1902). 


5 


44 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


cette séparation au neuviéme siécle dans une ville commer¢ante 
que Lyon, sans rompre les liens les plus doux de la société?” 
And later when their supremacy was challenged in the middle 
of the tenth century by the growth of the commercial spirit in 
the republic of Venice,’ and its government enacted a law for- 
bidding the masters of ships to give passage to Jewish merchants 
and others (strangers), as a measure of protection against power- 
ful competitors, the law long remained a dead letter.” 

Before the spirit of competition asserted itself, they must have 
been unhampered in their trade enterprises, both as agents and 
as artisans. Their commercial activity was especially noticeable 
in the silk industry, which because of the luxurious demands of 
Byzantium for its wares, was preeminent. An authority’ on 
the social and economic conditions of the Empire aptly says, 
“7weifellos war die Seidenindustrie in Constantinopel eine der 
wichtigsten wenn nicht die wichtigste iiberhaupt. Der Bedarf 
an Seidenstoffen war ein ganz ungeheurer fiir den Kaiser, seine 
Familie, seinen Hof, die Kirche u. s. w., die bei der orientalischen 
Hofhaltung ebenfals in reicher Menge verwendet wurden. Heyd 
(Lev. Handel I 22) bemerkt mit Recht, ‘Je weniger man durch 
Machtentfaltung imponiren konnte, desto mehr bedurfte man 
solcher Mittel (Prachtentfaltung) um die Ueberlegenheit des 
Roémerreichs ausser Zweifel zu setzen.’”’? From Greece, where the 
Jews of mediaeval Europe had achieved their first and notable 
success as planters of mulberry trees, breeders of silk-worms, 
weavers and dyers of silk and purple fabrics, they carried the 
art into Sicily, and became its chief promoters and artisans there. 
Roger of Naples engaged Jewish experts from Greece to develop 
the industry in his kingdom. From Sicily it was easily trans- 
mitted to Italy where it was developed with equal skill and 
enterprise.* As a result the popular mind so closely identified 

‘ Jacobs, Jewish. Contr. to Civilization, 200. 

2 Bédarride, 106 ff. 

8 Stéckle, Spdtrémische u. byzant. Ziinfte, 32. 

* Krauss, Studien 73, “Die Einfithrung der Seiden Zucht im griechisch- 
romischen Osten war eine Tat von welthistorischer Bedeutung, die dem Kaiser 


Justinianos zu verdanken ist, und nichts zeugt so sehr von der Vitalitét der 
Juden als die Tatsache dass sie die ersten waren die sich in der neuen Kunst 


INTRODUCTION 45 


the Jews with this industry that “the Jewish tax in Southern 
Europe was sometimes called ‘Tignta Judaeorum’ as it was 
levied as an impost on dyed goods.”! By virtue of their 
success in this local manufacture and traffic they would naturally 
be in control of the commerce in such products from the richer 
sources in the Orient. Men so well bearing the responsibilities 
of a generally acknowledged source of renown and wealth, would, 
from the mere sense of material gain, be favored as a valuable 
asset of emperor and people. Such favor we should expect to 
find as the portion of the communities in the great cities of Apulia, 
whose surpassing commercial and maritime advantages domi- 
nated the social order. 

As far, then as the Jewish communities in the populous 
mediaeval coast-towns of southern Italy are concerned, and 
that of Constantinople as well, the chief commercial port of the 
middle ages, it may justly be said that “geography? makes the 
history of Lower Italy in the early mediaeval centuries”; the 
interests developed by it are paramount. Ahimaaz’ coherent 
story of prosperity telling of these very communities is laid in 
a world that is free in its familiarity with the masters and the 
trafic of the sea. The outburst of fanaticism with which it 
begins he finds difficult to understand. But its raging is only 
that of a passing storm. For the moment, ecclesiastical interests 
prevail. With the exception of its accounting for this persecu- 
tion as the cruel policy of Basil and for the succeeding toleration 
as the noble practice of Leo, both resulting from an imperial 
edict, the chronicle gives the impression that the oppression 
of Basil was followed by the clemency of Leo, not only for the 
years of his reign, but for the entire period of this family’s 
experience. 

Ascribing to Leo an edict that restored religious liberty may 
well have been the simplest way of explaining to themselves what 
the chronicler’s ancestors must have seen. They may have 
believed that only by such positive administrative measure could 
so sehr auszeichneten.”” Pertz, Mon. V 192; Graetz, 5, 256; R. Straus, Die 
Rechtsverhdltnisse der Juden in Kénigreich Sizilien im 12 u. 13 Jahrhundert. 


1 Abrahams, Jewish Life in M. A., 219. ' 
2 Curtis, Roger of Sicily and the Normans in Lower Italy, 3. 


46 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


the change in their condition have been made. They attribute 
to him a policy that is not only not expressly stated, but not 
even implied in the severe measures pertaining to the Jews in the 
additions to the Byzantine Code, which, by the consensus of 
opinion among scholars, are ascribed to him. Realities of life 
_s the Jewish subjects of that Emperor were living it, may have 
determined their interpretation, regardless of the text of the 
Code which was probably inaccessible to them. By this attitude 
towards Leo, the tradition gives impetus to the discussion that 
hinges upon the disparity between the legislation of the Empire 
and the social order that arises in defiance of it, a discussion that 
arises generally in the consideration of the position of the Jews 
in mediaeval society, but particularly in the study of the Byzan- 
tine phase of the question. The legislation of the codes is quite 
frequently an unreliable index to the life which it is supposed to 
control. Restricting himself to the evidence of Byzantine laws 
concerning the Jews, Graetz! concludes that Byzantium was the 
source from which all thought and practice of European persecu- 
tion of the Jews emanated. Disputing this generalization, 
Roscher,? arguing more safely and comprehensively from actual 
communal life in the empire, observes, “ War doch in Byzanz die 
Uberlieferung aus dem Alterthume niemals véllig unterbrochen 
gewesen, und diese Staat Wahrend des ganzen friihern Mittel- 
alters der erste Handelsplatz der Christenheit!”’ 

The imperial restrictions are not generally enforced to the 
letter. Itis as true of this Basilian period as it is of the preceding 
centuries of Byzantine administration that the codes tell only 
a part of the social story, at times a negligible part, having little 
more than antiquarian value as religious and political proscrip- 
tions decreed by an imperial will seeking to impose itself upon 
the life of the people, but eventually, through indifference or 
popular compulsion or material self-interest, permitting them 
to be honored rather in the breach than in the observance. 
There can be no question that “if the legal status of the Jews 
were our sole criterion, the picture of their relations with medi- 


1 Geschichte 8, 204. 
2 Ansichten der Volkswirtschaft, II, 336. 


INTRODUCTION 47 


aeval Christians would need to be painted in very sombre hues.” ! 
A spirit of excessive ecclesiastical zeal now and then dictated 
laws that could not be enforced because of powerful social forces 
that opposed them. The problem resolves itself into a deter- 
mination of the result of a contest between rigid legalism and 
practical life. There is a wide diversity in the application of the 
code, even when it is transmitted without change from one reign 
to another. | 

An important contributing cause was, as Reinach points out, 
the disposition of the various emperors.? Constance, a very 
zealous patron of orthodoxy, in his use of the Constitutions of his 
father, Constantine, wields an instrument of fanatic antagonism 
which was altogether wanting when these civil and political 
regulations were first applied. Theodosius II., less given to 
ecclesiasticism, though adding to the civil disabilities of the 
Jews, does not deprive them of religious freedom. A century 
later, Justinian, with a passion for imperial regulation and in 
his submission to the church, adds to the code the first religious 
proscription, violating the liberty of Judaism, as a “religio 
licita.” Leo the Isaurian, aiming to conciliate the orthodox 
accusers that charge him with heresy, and with being the 
creature of the Jews in the shattering of the images, decrees 
that all Jews and the remaining Montanists in Asia Minor must 
submit to baptism (723). Similarly Basil I., his hands stained 
with the crime through which he obtained the throne, readily 
yields to the will of his ecclesiastical counsellors, and finds 
nothing more acceptable to God than the extermination of all 
heresy and, first of all, that form of it represented by Judaism. 
But by the side of these representatives of political and religious 
violence, the administrators who ruled in a spirit of clemency 
and even of deliberate humanity are the more numerous among 
Byzantine sovereigns.? Under Jovian, Valens and Valentinian, 
Julian, Irene and Leo VI., the proscriptive measures were either 
indifferently enforced or altogether disregarded. Theoretically,’ 


1 Abrahams, J. Life in M. A., 399. 

2 Histoire, 43. 

3 Reinach, Diaspora JE, IV, 572; —Histoire, 43; Graetz, 5, 18. 

‘Berliner, JJ, 6, “Wie unter Theoderich genossen die Juden unter der 


48 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


textually, the law of the land is essentially the same from the 
constitutions of Constantine to the Basilica, the last of the 
imperial codes. — 

One readily observes the terseness and the clearness with 
which the chronicle alludes to the character of Basil.! He was 
a man of treachery, a murderer; he was a worshipper of images; 
in other words, he began by showing traits of a bigoted mind, 
capable of a policy of persecution. It sees a direct connection 
between his superstitious orthodoxy and the ruthless conver- 
sionist scheme that he thrust upon the state. It is the one 
instance of such affliction recalled by his ancestors or by Ahimaaz, 
out of their own experience, in the course of the two hundred 
years of Basilian rule. It is thought of rather as a wild depar- 
ture from the law of the empire than as a natural adherence to it. 
And the emperor who has commanded it, can nullify the edict 
at will, to spare entire communities.” There is actually but one 
instance in Byzantine History that might have served as a 
precedent for Basil’s persecution: the violent heresy-hunting of 
Leo the Isaurian, through which Jewish communities in Con- 
stantinople*® and other cities may have temporarily ceased to 
exist. He may have followed his example as he adopted the 
legislation of that emperor’s Ecloga. Finlay’s* criticism of its 
proscriptive measures, that they are rather a series of edicts than 
laws, may well be applied to the stringent regulations in the 
Basilica. It can scarcely be questioned that the later lawgiver, 
with all his denunciation of his predecessor as an arch heretic 
pulling down the sacred images, “servilely imitated all his 
political plans.’ Every reaction against and recovery from 
political and social chaos was signalized by a codification of the 
laws on the part of the emperor that was responsible for the 
restoration of imperial power. It may have been prompted both 
by a sense of need and, as far as later emperors are concerned, by 


ganzen Herrschaft der Ostgothen bei Aufrechterhaltung der Gesetze des 
Theodosianischen Gesetzbuches eine vollstaéndige Toleranz.” Finlay, IJ, 60, 
148. 

1 Below, 69. 

2 Below, 73. 

’ Broydé, Constantinople, JE, IV, 237. 

‘Finlay, 17. 33; Zachariae, Historiae Juris Graeco-Rom. Delineatio 14f. 


INTRODUCTION 49 


an ambition to be ranked with the lawgivers. It is always prac- 
tically the same code. The code begun by Basil and completed 
by Leo and Constantine VII. is no exception to the rule. “Les 
Basiliques contiennent, presque mot pour mot les articles du 
code de Justinien. La jurisprudence est donc fixée a légard 
des Juifs dés le sixiéme siécle. S’il éut diversité dans la politique 
des Empereurs a leur égard, ce fut plutdt dans lapplication des 
lois existantes que dans la promulgation de nouveaux décrets.””! 

As far as Basil’s codification is concerned, we are not left to 
conjecture as to what the need and aim were, at least as under- 
stood by the author of the Life of Basil. Upon such authority, 
Mortreuil? believes that upon Basil’s accession to the throne, 
there was “un cri général en faveur de la reforme des lois civiles 
de toute parte dans l’empire; heureusement |’empereur, aprés 
avoir par ses victoires relevé ses sujets de l’abattement profond 
ot ils étaient plongés depuis tant d’années, fut lui-méme au- 
devant des besoins qu’ exigeaient l’administration de la justice, 
et s’occupa de suite du sort déplorable de la legislation. Le 
biographe inconnu qui a écrit sous Constantine Porphyrogénéte 
la vie de notre empereur s’exprime en ces termes: ‘'Trouvant les 
lois civiles obscures et embrouillées 4 cause de mélange des 
bons et des mauvaises dispositions, car les lois abrogées comme 
celles en vigueur figuraient sans distinction dans un seul et méme 
corps de droit, Basile régularisa leur condition avec autant 
de soin que l’entreprise le comportait. A cet effet, il élimina 
les lois abrogées qui se trouvaient sans application, il revisa le 
grand nombre de celles qui avaient un intérét d’actualité, et 
pour faciliter l’étude de ces derniéres, il réduisit, leur nombre 
infini dans un abrégé divisé en chapitres particuliers.” And 
Basil gives his own view of his legislative work, in the preface 
of his first digest of the laws:? “As for the ancient laws, we have 
gathered, in a single volume, all those that have been abrogated, 
so that they may be known of all, and that there invalidity may 
be manifest. The laws that are still valid, we have arranged 
in another compilation.” 


1 Janin, Echos d’Orient, (1912). 
2 Mortreuil, Histoire du Droit byzantin, IT, 19. 
3 Brandileone, Prochtiron. 


50 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


Whatever the intention, as expressed in these words, may 
have been, the labor of revision did not produce a code, in any 
important respect, different from the established work of Jus- 
tinian. The laws concerning Jews,! as a whole, are those of the 
older code. They contain the same provisions to shield the 
Christians against the Jews, originally devised, probably, to 
oppose menacing Jewish proselytism, and the regulations to 
protect the Jews against the fanatic zeal of Christians. Basil’s 
violent conversionist policy is in flagrant contradiction to the 
law incorporated in the Basilica,? “No Jew shall be persecuted 
because he is a Jew; his religion shall not be a pretext for 
harassing him.” (Bas. L, 144; Code l. g. 14); “All damage done 
to the property of Jews shall be compensated by double payment; 
the governors of the cities and provinces who permit such 
offenses, are liable to the same penalty. Under penalty of 
excommunication, no one shall desecrate the synagogs by military 
billeting.”” The law also ordains respect for the Sabbath and 
the Jewish Feasts; On these days no Jew shall be asked to labor 
or serve in any curial capacity. Clearly, the years of relentless 
oppression described by Ahimaaz bear no relation to these 
quite equitable requirements of the imperial code. Janin’s com- 
ment on these protective measures, transmitted from the earliest 
constitutions of the Empire, is eminently applicable to this 
period of persecution; “Sérieusement appliqués, ces édits de 
protection auraient rendu la situation d’Israel en somme fort 
tolérable.” This imperial mission to the Jews is in utter 
violation of them all. It is dictated not by the desire, originally 
responsible for them, to restrain and humiliate the Jews through 
civil and political disabilities, but by a determination to destroy 
their religion, root and branch; a mission passionately conceived 
as the first of the three great tasks that Basil imposed upon 
himself. 

The Jewish chronicler leaves no doubt as to the bitterness 
and the extent® of the calamity that resulted, that became 


‘ Reinach, Diaspora JH; Cassel, E'rsch und Gruber, Die Juden, 52; Scherer, 
Die Rechtsverhdltnisse d. Juden, I, 3. 

2 Echos d’Orient, 1912. 

3 Below, 73. 


INTRODUCTION 51 


the frequent subject of penitential poems and, among the medi- 
aeval Jews, became the sorrowful memory of the “five communi- 
ties that were spared and of the thousand that were martyred.” 
In this Jewish tradition it is raging intolerance on the part of 
the dominant religion against a persistent rival. The votary 
of Judaism must become a member of the church, confessing that 
“Jesus is the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets,” ! as the 
Byzantine authors express the controlling thought of Basil. 
The Byzantine histories”? of this event likewise accentuate the 
sectarian prompting that was responsible for it. Among modern 
students of the reign of Basil, there is a tendency to insist too 
strongly upon the distinction between political, economic and 
religious interests as we have come to know them, and to 
attribute his repression of the Jews to other than ecclesiastical 
motives. Under the conspicuous leadership of the Emperor, 
the avowed patron of orthodoxy, aspiring to remove every trace 
of the Iconoclast heresy, the lurking hostility to Judaism would 
have every encouragement to throw off restraint; there would 
naturally be but one criterion of loyalty to the state—adherence 
to the orthodox creed. That his edict was so intended and was 
so understood, is evident from the biographies and chronicles, 
that, for this excessive missionary zeal, proclaim him the accep- 
table representative of imperial power. 

Whatever consideration might have been given to various 
spheres of administration in his day, the testimony of this Jewish 
document, and that of the Christian sources are at one in proving 

1 Krauss, Studien 42. 

2 “Videns autem nulla re sic Deum delectari ut animorum salute, eumque 
qui dignum ab indigno educat Christi os nuncupari (Jer. 15, 19) neque apos- 
tolicum opus hoc sibi negligendum segniusve habendum putavit. Sed ante 
omnia Judaeorum gentem incircumcisum et duro corde ac cervice quod in 
ipso fuit, in Christo obsequium verbi sagena, irretiut. Jubens enim suae 
religionis argumentis allatis disputationibus aleam experiri acvel sua firma 
ostendere et quibus contradici non possit aut persuasos Christum legis caput 
esse et prophetarum.” 'Theophanes Contin. 345. 

“‘Imperii annis septimo et octavo baptizat Basilius Hebraeos omnes sub 
dicione positas, dignitatibus augens ac plura illis dona tribuens.”’ 


Symeonis Magistri, Annales, 691; Georgii Monachi, Vitae Imperatorum 
Recentiorum, 9. 


52 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


that the ecclesiastical interests were paramount during this reign, 
with civic and economic considerations severely subordinated 
to them, if not entirely ignored. For the time being, the more 
tolerant spirit of social cooperation that generally manifested 
itself in Byzantine life to the discomfiture of lawless ecclesiasti- 
cism, had gone down to defeat. Unlike those sovereigns who 
had similar conversionist designs but were thwarted by the 
unwilling populace, or by generally untoward conditions, from 
carrying them out, the founder of the Macedonian dynasty at- 
tained success that continued as long as he reigned. It is there- 
fore going very far afield to see in this anti-Jewish policy not a 
proscription of Judaism but a repression of the Jews for economic 
and political reasons. In a comprehensive and scholarly study 
of the reign of Basil, Vogt! calls attention to the wide diffusion 
of heresies in the empire, to the communities of Jews, Samari- 
tans, Paulicians,?> and to Monophysites and other Christian 
Sectaries that disputed the authority of the Greek church; he 
is of the opinion that the Jews, rather than the more menacing, 
yet more remote, Paulicians, were the first body attacked, 
because they were within easier reach in their large settlements 
in Constantinople and other cities under his immediate juris- 
diction. He finds, so far as legislation is concerned, a relaxation 
of tyranny in their favor: “Le fait le plus curieux concernant les 
Juifs au neuviéme siécle est assurément la relative douceur de 
la législation a leur égard. Basile ne parle pas des peines 
qu’attendent les Juifs apostats. I] ne parait pas avoir édicté a 
leur usage des lois aussi sévéres que pour les manichéens. II] se 
contente de prévenir leur zéle religieux en les empéchant de faire 
de la propagande. D’Aprés le Prochiron, le Juif n’était puni de 
mort qu’en deux circonstances, s’il imposait la circoncision a 
son esclave chrétien, et s’il cherchait a le détourner de la foi ortho- 
doxe.”’ * He plainly assumes that there was a strict adherence 
to the letter of the law. 

But the political factor which he emphasizes is proven a 
negligible one from his own words, when he traces the causes of 

1 Vogt, Bas. 1, 295. 

2 Finlay, IJ, 169, 243ff; Vogt, ibid., 322. 

3 Vogt, ibid., 304. 


INTRODUCTION 53 


this bitter antagonism to the Jews, to earlier conditions of 
toleration, especially under Michael of Amorion,! when they 
ventured upon widespread proselytism? in the Empire, arousing 
the clergy to redouble their opposition, to seize just such an 
opportunity as Basil’s patronage offered. In addition to tra- 
ditional and historical antipathies, which he finds insufficient 
to explain the violent policy, he accepts another reason which 
Photius had given in a letter to Michael of Bulgaria: ‘They 
allied themselves with all other heretics,” ? as is implied also in 
the closing words of the formula for the reception of a Jew into 
Christianity, ‘““Anathéme non seulement a la doctrine israélite 
mais encore a toutes les doctrines hérétiques.’’ In these details 
of his study, Vogt lays bare the weakness of the political theory 
as to the position of the Jews under Basil. After all, he who 
lays so much stress upon the text of the laws accepts the fact 
that is not sanctioned by them, and that is known only through 
the writings of those who, either as contemporaries or as later 
compilers of tradition, vouched for it; and his attitude in the 
end, is actually that which one would reasonably adopt when 
confronted with such conflicting documentary evidence. To 
offset the testimony of the code, we have the doubly effective 
evidence, on the one hand, of Theophanes Continuatus and the 
other historians representative of the orthodoxy of the age; on 
the other, of the record of affliction transmitted by the descend- 
ants of those who were brought to the verge of annihilation. 
These together give the data of prime importance in forming 
our judgment of the situation. Taking them at their historical 
value, we may well conclude, with Krauss,’ that “Basil affected 
the Jews as no other Greek Emperor had done.” In the light 
of the family annals of Ahimaaz, Basil, in his intolerance, is a 
solitary figure among the sovereigns of the Macedonian dynasty. 

1 Finlay II, 128. 

“Fuit hic Michaelus Amorii natus, superioris Phrygiae urbe; in qua ab 
antiquis temporibus Judaeorum Athinganorum aliorumque impiorum multi- 
tudo habebat . . . erat Michaelo praeceptor ... Ebraeus quidam (sive 
is femina potius Ebraica fuit).” Cedrenus (Bekker), 69, 4. 

2 Rambaud, Etudes, 272. 


3 Vogt, Bas. 1, 302. Migne, PG I 1465; Cumont, Wiener Studien, 1902, 24. 
4 Krauss, Byz. Empire JE III 458. 


54 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


Of specific importance as a supplementary and corroborative 
document for the history of Basil’s reign, this collection of 
Jewish traditions serves as a unique contribution to our knowl- 
edge of that of Leo VI. It stands alone in accrediting this 
emperor with a radical departure from his predecessor’s policy 
of persecution.!. Its emphatic, positive statement leaves nothing 
to speculation; there is in it no such omission as that of the 
official histories that mention the return of many apostates to 
their Jewish faith, after the death of Basil,? adding no word of 
explanation of so strange a fact; leaving to conjecture, whether 
it was caused by the annulment of the edict of persecution. 
Instead of being counted among the Byzantine emperors who 
made “lettre morte” of the more humane provisions of religious 
toleration, he is to be ranked, by the insistence of these bene- 
ficiaries, among the princes of toleration. We must accept 
it as a trustworthy statement, so far, at least, as the outstanding 
experience of religious freedom is concerned. It is so regarded 
by Broydé when he says: “No wonder that Constantinople 
became the centre of Judaism when Leo VI. restored religious 
freedom to the Jews.” * The happier conditions may well have 
warranted the belief that the cruel edict had been formally 
and officially annulled. 

The adoption of this tradition does indeed involve us in diffi- 
culties if we insist that the stringent measures in the Basilica, 
attributed to Leo, must remain the chief, if not the only source 
of information as to the character of his administration. IH, for 
instance, we accept as the controlling authority in the study 
of his reign, the inaugural declaration reported of him, that, to 
prove worthy of his royal inheritance, he would not only continue 
the departed emperor’s attack upon heresy, but would even add 
to its violence; if we accept it as conclusive in the valuation of 
testimony bearing upon his life, we shall have insuperable diffi- 


1 Below, 74. 
2 Return of the Jews to their faith upon the death of Basil I is mentioned 
by Theophanes Continuatus, 341, “Multos . . . ad Christi fidem attraxit, 


quanquam plerique rursum post imperatorem e vivis exemptum, ad vomitem 
suum ut canes reversi sunt.”’ 
3’ Broydé, Constantinople, JE. IV, 237. 


INTRODUCTION 55 


culty with the statement of Ahimaaz that flatly contradicts it. 
Krauss,! attempting to reconcile the evidence of the code and 
that of the Jewish tradition, suggests that, among the violent 
measures of Leo, there may, at least, not have been the decree 
of compulsory baptism; or, that there may have been a brief 
respite between the declaration of the close of Basil’s reign and 
the enthronement of his successor, during which interval of 
suspended administration the victims of persecution might have 
thrown off the mask of orthodoxy, which, however, they might 
again have been compelled to wear when he was seated in authority. 
We may obtain a more satisfactory result if we restrict each 
of these authorities to its own sphere, in the one instance, to the 
theory of official legislation, in the other, to the facts of social 
experience. In other words, we must choose between the literal 
proof of the laws and the photographic record of life. Whereas, 
under Basil’s rule, the severity becomes the arbitrary practice 
promulgated by a zealot nature, the praise for toleration might 
have been bestowed upon Leo, for laxity in the enforcement of 
repressive measures; a laxity that may even have been forced 
upon him. There is no reason to believe that the continuity of 
administration was broken as he succeeded to the throne. Basil, 
filled with the ambition of establishing a dynasty, and following 
Byzantine custom, had guarded against such contingency, by 
crowning” his sons in their childhood, proclaiming their incon- 
testable right to the throne. Leo was thus chosen for imperial 
power in his infancy. Upon the death of Constantine, the eldest 
son of Basil, Leo naturally became heir apparent. “ Vita functo 
Constantino, tum amor et spes omnis in Leonem.”* Again, the 
inscription of the first digest of laws of the new era inaugurated 
by Basil, the Prochiron, in which the joint authorship and 
sovereignty of the father and two sons are clearly proclaimed, 
gives further assurance of the improbability of any interregnum. 
? Krauss, Studien, 44 n. 8. 
2 Finlay, IJ, 256. 
Zonaras, IJ 167, ‘“Filios tres Constantinum, Leonem et Alexandrum 
augustalibus coronis ornavit.”’ 


McCabe, Empresses of C'ple, 123. 
3 Lupus Protospatarius. 


56 ; THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


And with equal clearness the annals of Lupus Protospatarius 
imply the continuity of imperial rule, specifying that the sons’ 
reign of twenty-six years in their own right followed immediately 
upon that of nine years which they had shared with their father. 
Furthermore, a fleeting interlude of privileged existence would 
not account for the sense of unbounded relief and gratitude that 
the words of the Chronicle convey. 

While it is generally believed that Leo not only succeeded to 
his father’s throne, but also carried to completion his legislative 
plans; that he had been disciplined and pledged to do so; such 
an estimate falls far short of covering his entire career. The 
younger basileus could not have been merely another Basil, of 
somewhat smaller and feebler stature. He has individuality; 
to the people of his time he was the Sage, the Philosopher, the 
only Byzantine emperor so designated. We should hesitate 
to question the sincerity of the tribute, and doubt the merit, 
as it was understood in his day, that elicited such praise. It 
seems an extreme generalization to dispose of it as the meaning- 
less verbiage of flattering courtiers and truckling chroniclers;' 
to say as does Kremer,’ that “Leo had no right to the title either 
through his public or his private life.’ Whatever the reason 
for this exceptional designation, whether he owes it to his prolific 
theological writings’ or to general authorship, or to pronounced 
interest in the study of philosophy and liberal patronage of its 
teachers, there probably was some conspicuous trait that sug- 
gested the surname. At any rate, there is in it the suggestion 
of less aggressive qualities than those of the ambitious reorganizer 
of declining Byzantine power.t’ He may well have been a worthy 
pupil, as Mortreuil believes, of Photius the teacher of his 
youth: “Les lecons de cet homme ne furent pas sans influence 
sur l’esprit du disciple. Laborieux, actif, Léon aima passionné- 
ment l'étude et travailla avec persévérance au bonheur de ses 

1 Graetz, 5, 245. 

2 Kremer, Culturgeschichte d. Orients unter d. Chalifen, II, 23. 

® Krumbacher, Gesch. d. byz. Lit., 628, 721; Sandys, I, 396; Finlay, IJ, 
259. 


4 Gelzer, Das Verhdltniss von Staat und Kirche in Byzanz, Historische Zeits. 
N. F. 50, 193. 


INTRODUCTION 57 


sujets. Malheureusement ses moeurs dissolues imprimérent une 
tache odieuse sur sa conduite privée. II ne fut pas heureux dans 
ses expeditions militaires. Les Sarrasins lui enlevérent Samos et 
Thessalonique. Les Bulgares ravagérent la Thrace sous les yeux. 
Sentant alors la faiblesse des forces effectives de l’empire, il se 
replia sur la diplomatie et il parvint, en mettant en jeu les ressorts 
de la politique, 4 passer en paix le reste de son regne.”’ 

Graetz,' upon the evidence of the Novellae, having charged 
Leo with more savage intolerance than that of Basil, wavers in 
his opinion, when he becomes aware of the large settlements of 
Jews in the Byzantine Empire upon the death of Leo. A 
relentless Byzantine Inquisition would have shattered the founda- 
tions needed for such thriving life. Finlay sees a radical differ- 
ence between the administration of Leo and that of Basil, when 
he holds him responsible for undermining the entire system of 
Basilian legislation.2, The appearance of such a work as the 
“Book of the Prefect” ? among the important writings of Leo 
testifies to a strong sense of social and economic organization. 
Its survey of the world of trade and commerce in the Empire 
betrays no sign of the existence of a spirit of rampant ecclesiasti- 
cism. Whether, then, the violent hand of Basilian Government 
was restrained by turbulence through the attacks of powerful 
invaders, or by the predominance of economic interests over the 
ecclesiastical, or by the deliberate interposition of the emperor, 
decreeing the end of persecution, the tradition of the forefathers 
of Ahimaaz, that under Leo, of blessed memory to them, their 
religious freedom was restored, carries conviction. And to the 
end of the record, whether it tells of their life in the Empire or 
in the provinces of the Caliphate, that privilege is not again 
denied them. 

At the conclusion of this study we are constrained to approve 

1 Graetz, 5, 245. Novella 55 upon which the general statement is based, 
in the Latin version of Kriiger, Corpus Juris IIT 798, reads, ‘‘ Nos igitur quod 
pater noster praetermisit, id complendum esse recte putantes, omni antiquiori 
quae de Hebraeis statuit legi silentium iniungimus, et ne illi aliter, quam pura 
et salutaris christianorum fides vult, vivere audeant, jubemus. 


2 Finlay, II, 236, 261. 
§ Nicole, Le Livre de Prefet; Stickle, Spdtrém. u. byz. Zinfte. 


58 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


the protest of Krauss! against indifference to the Byzantine 
period of Jewish History and Literature. In this attitude Jewish 
scholars have no doubt followed the conspicuous leading of their 
Christian colleagues. Modern Byzantine studies” having begun 
quite auspiciously in the seventeenth century at the hands of 
Du Cange, under the patronage of Louis XIV., were almost 
completely abandoned in the following century, largely through 
the influence of Gibbon,? Lebeau and Montesquieu, to whom 
Byzantine history was but a dismal chapter of utter barbarism. 
So they languished until the latter half of the nineteenth century,* 
when amid exhaustive research in the history of the Middle 
Ages, interest in them was revived. From a new sense of their 
legitimate value, the world of scholarship has found them emi- 
nently worthy of attention. Through the labors of Diehl, 
Rambaud, Zacharie, Krumbacher, Finlay, Schlumberger and a 
host of others, Byzantine life is no longer an outlawed province 
of investigation. In the introduction to the second edition of 
Krumbacher’s history of Byzantine Literature, published ten 
years after the first, he points to the larger volume, almost double 
the size of the earlier one, as telling evidence of the strides of the 
progress in the accumulation of material and in the pursuit of 
Byzantine studies. Apart from the stimulation that such fruit- 
ful labors give to the study of this period from the Jewish view- 
point, there is further incentive in the remains of that Mediaeval 
Jewish life that have been discovered in our day. They have 
independent value, as Kaufmann’ remarks, speaking of the im- 
portance of the Geniza® documents; “Ganz besonders dankbar 

1 Krauss, Studien, “‘Unbekannt und unbeachtet steht diese Geschichte da 
und doch wird es sich zeigen dass sie in der Gesammtgeschichte der Judenheit 
sogar einen weiten Raum beanspruchen kann, nach dem Worte Kaufmann’s, 
des feinfiihligen Historikers, ist das byzantinische Reich der dunkle Erdteil der 
jiidischen Geschichte im Mittelalter.” ’ 

2 Diehl, Les Etudes Byzantines en France, Byz. Zeits. 1900. Les Etudes 
d’ Histoire Byzantine en 1901, Rev. de Synthése Historique, 1901. 

3 Voltaire, Le Pyrrhonisme de l Histoire, Ch. XV n. 1; Lebeau, Le Bas-Em- 
pire, Introd.; Gibbon, Ch. 48; Montesquieu, Considérations sur les Causes de la 
Grandeur des Romains, etc. 3 Ed. 1911, 196ff. 

* Diehl, in Rambaud’s Htudes. 


5 Kaufmann, Byz. Zeits, 1898; Perles, Byx. Z. 1893, 569. 
6 Above, 32. 


INTRODUCTION 59 


muss hier jeder Triimmer begriisst werden, der uns iiber Vorgiinge 
in dem einst so weitgezogenen byzantinischen Reiche Nachrichten 
giebt die wir in dem sonst so reichen griechischen Schrifttume 
vergeblich suchen wiirden.” 

The discovery of these collections of tradition, following so 
closely upon the publication of the Chronicle of Ahimaaz, that 
had already renewed the hope of penetrating the obscurity of 
Byzantine Jewish life, vindicated the theory of the pioneers in 
the study, that behind the veil there is a world of thriving life. 
Yet this promising field has comparatively few toilers to cultivate 
it. Krauss! pleads for greater interest in it, since it surely does 
not deserve to be a “friendless waif’? among the interests of 
scholars. These manuscripts have already revealed enough to 
lead to the conclusion,? “Nous sommes maintenant fondés 4 
rompre le silence méprisant que guardait Graetz a l’égard de ces 
rabbins italiens, 4 son sens médiocres ou non existants. Quand 
il écrivait, on savait bien peu de chose sur [histoire des Juifs 
en Italie.” For the clearest tradition thus far revealed, on the 
communal life over which these sages of Italy presided, we must 
turn to the chronicle of Ahimaaz. 

1 Krauss, Studien 122, ‘Die Literatur der Juden in griechischer Sprache 
ist iiberhaupt eine der schwierigsten Partieen der Literatur (Steinschneider 
JQR 16, 383). Gilt das von der alten hellenischen jiidischen Literatur, so mit 
noch mehr Recht von der byzantinisch-jiidischen Literatur; das Meisste legt 


noch in Mss.”’ 
2 Adler, REJ 67, 40. 


PAR DSI 
TRANSLATION 


A Book of Genealogies 

In the name of the Lord, we will begin and finish (our task). 
My help (cometh) from the Lord. 

In the name of the Lord of Lords that doeth wonders I will 
write a book of genealogies. 

In the name of Him that dwelleth in the heavens of splendor, 
I will begin to tell the story, diligently to investigate, arrange 
and present a collection! of the traditions of my forefathers, to 
unfold them in proper order, to explain them with notes, to trace 
without confusion the genealogy whose parts must be collected 
like stubble. At the outset I will give praise and ascribe great- 
ness to Him that is mighty in deeds. I will glorify His holy 
name, and ever extol His memorial; with awe and trembling I 
will exalt Him, as from the days of old; I will be awake to declare 
His glory and will not slumber, as with the words of my mouth, 
I acknowledge the Eternal God is a dwelling place. I seek favor 
before the habitation of the Eternal God. I pray in word and 
thought that my supplication, fervent and sincere, may rise to 
Him that dwelleth in heaven, that I may inculcate lessons of 
truth, chant the prayers, and rise in song to the Lord of Lords, 
in the seat of the elders, in the company of the learned; that, with 
might, I may adore the Ever-living One, and in veneration, 
magnify the Most High; that I may crown? with sovereignty Him 
that dwelleth on high, in the assembly of the upright and the 
meeting of the wise. Day and night I will delight in praise to 
Him that doeth great things, that soundeth with the thunder; 
the Lord of Hosts, that worketh wonders, that did marvelous 


* The marginal numbers and letters indicate the corresponding pages and 
sections of the Hebrew text. 
1 Bacher, REJ 32, 144ff.; Abrahams, Chapters on Jewish Literature, 79. 
* Talmud, Aboda Zara 44a; Kohut, Aruch III 405b; Kaufmann, MGWJ 
40, 29 n. 3. 
60 


1*a 


TRANSLATION 61 


things for the guidance of my ancestors, that doeth marvelous 
things before my eyes, to instruct me, as signs and wonders, a 
promise of good. ‘To Him that dwelleth in heaven, I will turn 
in joyful praise, to invoke Him in sacred melody, with the out- 
pouring of entreaty, with reverence and understanding, with 
awe and becoming humility, like that of the lily of the valley; 
to proclaim His mighty deeds and to tell of His wonders, the 
power of His greatness, the splendor of His majesty, the endur- 
ance of His strength, the beauty of His eminence, the continuance 
of His wonders, the permanence of His dominion, which, to His 
praise, He hath marvelously created by His eternal power. He 
that established the mountains by His might, and that declareth 
unto man what is his thought; that created the earth by His 
wisdom and formed the world by His understanding, who in the 
heavens can be compared to Him whose kingdom extendeth to 
the ends of the earth? He causeth the sea to flee at His rebuke; 
the inhabitants of the world tremble for fear of Him; at His 
presence the mountains skip; under His gaze, the hills move. 
Truly great is His power, in all places is His dominion. Ex- 
tolled and exalted be the splendor of His majesty; praised be 
His name and the name of His kingdom’s glory. 

With praise, I will glorify Him that dwelleth in heaven; that, 
in His grace and justice, safely guided my ancestors who came 
forth with the exiles! that were spared in Jerusalem, and delivered 
them from destruction, children and elders, young and old, for 
the sake of His great mercy and the merit of the fathers of old. 
At all times they were protected by the God of heaven; shield 
and buckler has He ever been to my forefathers, and so may He 
continue to be to their children to the last generation. 

Now, with great care, I will set down in order the traditions of 
my fathers, who were brought ona ship over the Pishon,? the first 
river of Eden, with the captives that Titus took from the Holy 
City, crowned with beauty. They came to Oria; they settled 
there and prospered through remarkable achievements; they 
grew in number and in strength and continued to thrive. Among 

1 Above, 10. 


* The reference may be to the Euphrates that the exiles crossed on their way 
to Italy. Neubauer assumes (JQR IV, 614) that the river in question is the Po. 


1b 


62 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


their descendants there arose a man eminent in learning, a 
liturgical poet and scholar, master of the knowledge of God’s law, 
distinguished for wisdom among his people. His name was — 
Rabbi Amittai.1 And he had a number of amiable and worthy 
sons, intelligent and learned men, scholars and poets zealously 
teaching, worthy disciples, men of merit and renown, masters of 
secret lore,” grasping and applying the deeper truth of scriptures; 
adepts in the mysteries, fathoming the veiled principles of 
Hokmah and Binah (Esoteric and Exoteric Wisdom) and of all 
abstruse learning; wise in the knowledge of the Book of Jashar,* 
and familiar with the hidden meaning of the Merkaba. The first 
of them was R. Shephatiah,* zealous in the pursuit of wisdom; 
the second, R. Hananeel,°® engaged in the study of the Law of God 
which Jekutiel ® (Moses) delivered; the third, Eleazar, who was 
devoted to (the Law) given in the third’ (month). In the days 
of these good men there came from Bagdad, from our beloved 
ones, an esteemed man of distinguished family,® an illustrious 
scholar, warding off wrath from the descendants of those that 


1 Above, 11. 

2 The clearly defined features of the mysticism of the author’s day: the 
adroit cabalistical reading and application of Scripture; the contemplation 
of the mysteries of Hokmah and Binah, the masculine and feminine, or active 
and passive, principles of the fundamental Sefirot; wonder-working, and 
knowledge of the hidden truth of Divine Majesty (Merkaba). Bloch, Die 
jidische Mystik u. Kabbala, 256. 

’Preeminent among the cabalistical works of the later Geonic times. 
It is likewise placed at the head of the list of Hai Gaon (Ta-am Zekenim of 
Eliezer Ashkenasi, 56 b); Sefer Ha-Jashar, Harbah de Moshe, Raza Rabba, 
Sod Torah, Hekhalot Rabbati, Hekhalot Zutrati. Its authorship is attributed 
to R. Akiba by Zunz (GV 179 n. a). 

4 The ample traditions of this eldest son of Amittai establish his identity. 
Opposing the view of Zunz (Literaturgeschichte, 4 note 7), who at first regarded 
him as contemporary with the captives of Titus, and later (Synagogale Poesie, 
170; GV 405 note d) believed him to be the author of a poem for Neila, 
flourishing in the time of the Byzantine Emperor Basil II. (976-1026), these 
records confirm the opinion of Graetz, that he lived in the reign of Basil I. 
(867-886). 

5 Zunz, GV 376 nole e, Lit. 345; Kaufmann, MGWJ 40, 507. 

6 Kaufmann, MGWJ 38, 237; Neubauer, MJC I, Sambari, 156. 

7 Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, III 77f. 

8 Neubauer, JQR IV 615; Zunz, Ges. Schriften III 162; Kaufmann, 
MGWJ 40, 466 n. a.; Talmud, Sanhedrin 49a. 


TRANSLATION 63 


sleep in Hebron; he was as of the (favored) flock! unto the 
Almighty King (King Adiriron).? 

Before Aaron ? left his native land, his father had a mill by 
which he supported himself. It was turned by a mule. A lion 
fell upon the mule and killed it, while Aaron was out of the room. 
When he returned he could not find the mule, so he put the lion 
in its place, and fastened him to the mill to turn the grinding 
stones. When his father saw what he had done, he approached 
him and exclaimed, “What hast thou done? Thou hast put in 
the lion: thou hast humiliated him and broken his strength. 
God made him king and intended him to walk erect, and thou 
hast forced him into thy service, to work for thee. Now, as God 
liveth, thou shalt not remain with me, thou shalt go into exile, 
wandering by day and by night, for three years thou shalt suffer 
punishment for this offense. At the end of that time return to 
thy native land, and the Lord thy God will accept thee.” 

He came to Joppa. There he found ships on every hand. He 
said to the sailors, “Comrades and friends, in the name of God 
I come to you. I will go with you, and, with the favor of Him 
that dwelleth in light, will control fate, so that by the help of the 
awe-inspiring God, the ship on which we sail may not be over- 
taken by enemies or storm wind.” He went in and took his 
place among them. At the hour for sleep they reached the city 
of Gaeta. There Aaron came upon a Jew, a Sephardi, who 
befriended him and proffered the hospitality of his home. At 

1 Rosh haShana I, 2; Dembitz, Services in Synagog and Home, 237. 

2One of the names of God evolved in the mysticism of the Piyyutim. 
Zunz, SP 474. 

’This is the first of the Chronicle’s graphic references to Aaron or Abu 
Aaron, which are now accepted as conclusive identification,—though the 
father’s name is not given,—of Aaron ben Samuel ha-Nasi (Exilarch of Babylon 
773-816), who, as a distinguished master of the learning of the schools of the 
- Geonim, appeared and taught in the communities of Southern Italy about 
the middle of the ninth century. This authentic information disposes of the 
theory that he is a mythical figure invented to serve as the first master of 
prayer-interpretation and mysticism, believed by Eleazar of Worms and 
other commentators on the prayers to be the teacher of Moses ben Kalonymus 
who, among others, was called from Lucca to Mainz. 


Graetz, V 421; Zunz,SP 105; Neubauer, REJ 23, 23; Eppenstein, MGWJ 
55, 733; Neubauer, MJC I, 41. 


64 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


meal time the Sephardi did not eat, though the day was the 
Sabbath, sacred unto God. The master, surprised at his conduct, 
said, “Today is the Sabbath unto the awe-inspiring One, why 
dost thou not delight thyself with that which is called a delight?” 
The unhappy man answered, “Oh my master, do not urge me, 
for I am very sad, I am grieving for my son who has been taken 
from me for my many sins; I do not really know whether he is 
alive or dead.”’ The master then said to him in words of tender- 
ness, “Observe the Sabbath properly, then show me the streets 
and lanes in which he used to come and go. If he be still alive, 
I will restore him to thee, and if dead, I will surely tell thee.” 
The next day he did not delay. ‘Together they went to the house 
of their friends that his son had frequently visited, and there 
they found a woman,! an accursed sorceress, practicing her 
sorcery. She had changed the boy into a mule and had bound 
him to the mill stones, to make him grind as long as he lived. 
When the sage saw him, he recognized him and understood, and 
said to the father, “See, thy son, whom thou hast thought dead, 
is restored to thee.” He then spoke to the woman, and rebuking 
her, said, “Why art thou not overwhelmed with shame, since 
thou art caught in the net? Give back to the father his son, 
his own flesh.”’ The wicked woman was crestfallen; she did not 
give heed to his words and did not answer him either gently or 
harshly. ‘Thereupon the good man took hold of the mule, led 
him out, transformed him, gave him his original form, and 
restored him to his father. The master turned in praise to his 
Maker. ‘Together they uttered praise to their God, their Creator. 

After this (incident), he made use of his wonder-working 
wisdom, to do very difficult and astonishing things. When he 
reached Beneventum the entire community came out as one man 
to welcome him. On the Sabbath, an esteemed young man arose 
to read the prayers before Him that dwelleth on high. He 
chanted with pleasing voice. When he reached the words 
“Barechu et adonai hammevoroch,” his voice lingered on the 
sound, but he did not pronounce God’s name. The master at 
once realized that the reader was actually a dead man, and (it 


1 Blau, Das Altjtidische Zauberwesen, 23; Lenormant, La Magie, 70. 


3a 


TRANSLATION 65 


is known that) the dead do not praise God. “Stop,” he at 
once commanded in a loud voice, “Do not give praise, for thou 
art not permitted to recite prayer before God.” Then he began 
to question the youth, to plead with him in the name of his 
Maker, saying, ‘“‘Tell me and do not fear, do not conceal from 
me what thou hast done, confess the truth before the Creator 
of the Spirit, glorify the God of glory, give thanks to Him in the 
midst of the congregation, and so acquire a portion in the world 
to come, and in this (world) be without sin. Thou wilt then be 
free from transgression, winning for thyself blessings, the well- 
ordered world (to come), and the good appointed for the righteous 
among His people, for those that fear God and honor His name.” 
Immediately he answered, “I have indeed sinned, and trespassed 
against God; I have rebelled and transgressed and done wrong. 
If you are willing to bear the burden of the sin which your 
servant has committed, (I will confess). And all of them were 
willing to bear all that he imposed upon them. Thereupon he 
confessed, giving thanks to God; and thus told what he had done 
and what had happened to him. He said: 

Hear me, oh people of God, my teachers and masters, leaders and elders, 
sages and scholars, princes and nobles, old and young, I will tell you plainly 
all that happened. 

In my time! there was a Jew named R. Ahimaaz who went to Jerusalem, 
the glorious city, three times, to fulfil his vow. On each pilgrimage he took 
100 pieces of gold 2 with him, as he had vowed to the Rock of his salvation, 
to give aid to those who were engaged in the study of His law, and to those 
who mourned the ruined house of His glory. As he set out on his third 
pilgrimage, he asked my mother for me, saying, ‘‘ Let him go with me, to keep 
me company and help me on the way. I will bring him back to thee; at my 
hands thou mayest require him; if I do not bring him back to thee, I shall 
have sinned before God, I and my children.”’ Then we set out on our journey 
rejoicing, without a thought of sadness. As we were sitting at the table of 
the scholars in study with the head of the academy, the teachers of the Law 
exclaimed, ‘‘Let us give praise, in pleasant and fervent song, with love and 
devotion to Him that is adored by myriads.” They looked at their disciples 
seated before them; the head of their school turned to them and said, ‘‘ Let the 
young man in our midst, who has come with our colleague R. Ahimaaz, cheer 
us and delight our heart with the flow of his knowledge and the utterance of 
his thoughts.” Then I began reverently to give praise in psalm and song to 
Him that putteth on light as a garment. 

1 Kaufmann, 468. 

2 Schechter, Studies in Judaism, I 350; Krauss, Studien, 109. 


3b 


Gin; THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


There sat one of the elders in meditation, intently listening to my chanting. 
He began to weep bitterly. R. Ahimaaz, looking at him, noticed his actions, 
and arising from the company went over to him and begged him to tell why 
he wept. The elder simply told him that God had decreed that, in a little 
while, the young man would surely die. When the good man heard this his 
eyes filled with tears, he rent his clothes and tore out his hair, and exclaimed 
before them all, “I have no place among the living; I have sworn to his mother 
that I would bring him back to her, without mishap or harm; how can I 
return to my house, if the lad is not with me? The oath which I have taken 
will be the means of blighting my hope and ardent expectation.”’ See- 
ing his affliction and his bitter weeping, they wrote the Holy Name that 
was written in the Sanctuary; they made an incision in the flesh of my right 
arm, and inserted the Name! where the flesh had been cut. So I came away 
in peace and returned home to my mother. While R. Ahimaaz was alive I 
wandered 2 from land to land. Living since that time, I can live forever if 
I so desire, for no man can know the place of the Name unless I reveal it. 
But I will show it to you; I amin your hands; deal with me as seems right in 
your eyes. 


So they brought the grave clothes; he approached and put 
them on; he then showed where the master had made the 
incision, and took the Name out of it. His body became lifeless; 
the corpse crumbled in decay as from the dissolution of many 
years, the flesh returned to the dust. 

From that city he (Aaron) journeyed onward and went to 
Oria.2> There he found tents (of study), set up by the rivers, 
planted and thriving like trees by the waters, schools established, 


1 Blau, 117. 

2 Upon this passage Bacher bases the opinion that it contains the first 
mention of the legend of the wandering Jew. But the story here told is 
fundamentally different. In this instance, the wanderer has knowledge of the 
miraculous power that keeps him alive, and is free to make an end of its 
sway over him, by telling his dread secret as, in weariness and with a sense of 
guilt, he finally does. Furthermore, the continuance of life is here bestowed 
in a spirit of paternal sympathy and kindness, and not inflicted, as with 
Ahasuerus or Bottadeus of the popular legend, as endless punishment for 
a monstrous offense. L. Neubaur, Die Sage vom ewigen Juden. 

* These traditions regarding Oria as a seat of learning in the ninth century, 
affording especially favorable conditions for the activities of Abu Aaron, tell 
more clearly what is suggested in the occasional references of Shabbethai 
Donnolo to the city as his birthplace and a centre of Jewish life. The name 
in the earlier source could not have referred (Zunz GV 375) to Aversa (founded 
by the Normans in 1027). It is explained by Adler (REJ 67, 40) as a genitive 
form. It is probably the transliteration of a word used by the Byzantine 
writers. In the Chronicon Lupi Protospatarii (Migne PL 155, 141), the city 
is mentioned as Ories Civitas, and again, indicating the genitive form, Civi- 
tatem Oriae. Krauss, Studien, 44.1; 116 n. 1. 


3c 


4a 


TRANSLATION 67 


rooted like cedars growing at the side of flowing streams. There 
contending and flourishing in the pursuit of study, masters in 
public discourse and of learned discussion of the Law, were the 
distinguished scholars, the genial brothers, my ancestors, the 
Sons of R. Amittai, R. Shephatiah and R. Hananeel, both of 
them true servants of God, zealously extolling the God of Israel, 
fervently invoking Him, declaring His praise and holiness: like 
the company of angels acknowledging the might and dominion 
of the King of Kings. Among them Aaron established his home. 
His wisdom streamed forth, his learning flourished there. He 
revealed great powers, and gave decisions of the law like those 
which were given when the Urim! were in use, when the San- 
hedrin held court, and the law of Sota? was valid. He extended 
his influence, he founded a place of study (seat of learning), to 
take the place of that which had been on the ground of the 
temple, where the foundations of the ark had been laid. A 
certain Theophilus committed a sin through criminal intercourse 
with a married woman.? Aaron, before the assembled com- 
munity, condemned him to death by strangulation. A man laid 
violent hands on a woman and killed her; the master decided his 
case with severity, and sentenced him to death by the sword. 
He then considered the crime of the man who had fallen into 
idolatry; his case was clear beyond question; he was con- 
demned to death by stoning. Again, a man violated the Law of 
God, through illicit relations with his mother-in-law; by order 
of the master the community assembled and put the criminal 
to death by fire. 

By the grace of Him that hath formed the earth by His power, 
that forgiveth iniquity and sin, I will make mention of the inci- 
dent that occurred at Venosa. ‘There was a man who had come 
from the land of Israel, profoundly learned in the law of God, 
a master of wisdom. He remained there for some time. Every 
Sabbath he would give instruction and expound the Law before 


1 Talmud, Sota IX 10-48b; Yoma, 21b; Josephus, Antiquities III 8, 59. 

* The law bearing upon the wife suspected of infidelity (Numbers 5, 11-31) 
was in force until the time of R. Jochanan ben Zakkai who declared it no 
longer valid. Mishna, Sota IX, 9. . 

’ Benny, The Criminal Code of the Jews, 84ff; Saalschiitz, Das Mosaische 
Recht, ch. 68. 


4b 


68 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


the community of the people of God. The master would lead 
with a discourse on the selected portion of the law, and R. 
Silanus! would follow with his elucidation. One day, the men 
of the villages came in wagons to the city; they began to quarrel 
among themselves. Scme women came out of their houses, 
with the long staves used for raking the oven and charred by the 
fire; with these the men and women beat one another. R. 
Silanus,? in a mistaken spirit of levity, resolved to make use of 
the incident, and committed a great wrong. He sought out the 
passage of the scriptural portion that the sage was to expound on 
that Sabbath, erased two lines of it and, in their stead, wrote the 
story that is told above. This is what R. Silanus inserted, “The 
men came (to the city) in wagons; the women came from their 
houses, and beat the men with staves.’ On the Sabbath, as the 
sage came upon the words, he stopped reading and all speech 
failed him. He looked at the letters and studied, examined and 
pondered and went over them several times and finally, in his sim- 
plicity, read them, and gave as part of the instruction the words 
that hefound written there. Then R.Silanus,in mocking laughter, 
said toall assembled there, “ Listen to the discourse of the masteron 
the quarrel that occurred among you yesterday, when the women 
beat the men, when they struck them with oven staves and drove 
them off on every hand.’’ When the master realized what had 
been done he became very faint, and pale; he hurried to his 
associates who were in the school engaged in study, and told them 
of the sorrowful experience he had just had. All of them were 
deeply pained and distressed, and they denounced * R. Silanus 
the wise.* 

He remained in ban a number of years, until R. Ahimaaz 
arrived there on his pilgrimage, and, in his wisdom, annulled 
the ban. This is what the wise man did. When he arrived, 
they were observing the ten days of penitence. The teachers 


The Meturgeman who translated into the vernacular the principal’s 
reading of the Torah, eventually became, as is indicated, an assistant preacher 
or teacher freely using the rabbi’s lesson as a text. 

? Neubauer, JQR JV; Kaufmann, MGWJ 40, 472 note 2; Ascoli, Iscrizioni, 
84; Lenormant, Gazette Archéologique, VIII 208. 

§ Above, 14. 

‘Mann, The Jews of Egypt & Palestine under the Fatim. Caliphs, I 56. 


5a 


TRANSLATION 69 


and head of the school urged him to stand before the ark, and, 
with ardent devotion, lead them in prayer to Him that is revered 
in the great assembly of the righteous. 

In his modesty, he complied with their request. With the 
fear of God in his heart, he began with the penitential prayers, 
then melodiously chanted a poem! of R. Silanus to show that 
he was a man of sound faith; that, although he was at first false 
and sinful and godless, when he remembered the former teachers, 
he followed them as his masters, who shattered the power of 
heretical teachings over him, so that he turned away from the 
heretics. When the sage had finished the prayers, they asked 
him who that lover of the great teachers was, so consecrated 
with power to utter prayer, who loved and honored the masters, 
and turned away and shunned the heretics. He answered, 
“That beloved one is R. Silanus, who has been denounced as 
unworthy among you.” They immediately arose and annulled 
the ban which they had declared against him, and, invoking 
upon him abundant, enduring and substantial good, all of them 
said, “May R. Silanus ever be blessed.” 

In those days a king reigned over the Romans,” a wicked man, 
elevated to the throne through treachery and murder,? who 
determined to make an end of the acknowledgment of the Unity 
of the Rock whose work is perfect, among the descendants of the 


1JIn keeping with the custom of the time, permitting the reader of the 
prayers to insert poems at will, the sage here makes use of a poem of Silanus. 
The eventual abuse of this freedom, through the addition of the many Piyyutim 
with their distracting obscurities in word and thought marring the simplicity 
and solemnity of the service, is denounced by Maimonides (More 159); Ibn 
Ezra, Kohelet, 5, 1. 

2The designation, Romans, is in accord with that which the people 
and writers of the Byzantine Empire used. In the writings of Cedrenus and 
Constantine and in the sources generally, they are called Pwyaw. They 
resented being called Greeks. Latin words, phonetically transcribed, were 
taken over into the Greek vernacular. 

Accounting for the two names by which the Empire was known, Rambaud 
(Etudes sur UVhistoire byzantine, 178ff) says: L’Empire byzantine s’appelait 
officiellement |’Empire romain bien que le latin 4 partir du 7e ou du 8e siécle 
fut passé en Orient a |’état de langue étrangére, de langue morte. Nous 
Vappelons |’Empire grec parceque l’idiome hellenique était la langue de l’église 
et de l’état. Finlay, JJ. 200; Freeman, Historical Essays III, 237 ff. 

$ This brief sketch of Basil reflects accurate knowledge of the treachery 
by which this Macedonian groom usurped the throne of his master, Michael ITI. 


5b 


70 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


upright and holy. In the 800th year after the destruction of the 
Holy City and of the Temple, the seat of glory, and of the exile 
of the people of Judah and of Israel, there arose a king whose 
name was Basil, a worshipper of images,' seeking to destroy the 
people of Israel? ever under God’s protection (not widowed), to 
lead them astray, to exterminate the remnant of Israel root and 
branch, to compel them to abandon the Law and to accept the 
worthless doctrine? (of Jesus). He sent couriers and horsemen 
to the provinces and all parts of his kingdom, to force the Jews 
out of their religion, and make them adopt his senseless faith. 
The agents of the king went through the land as far as the harbor 
of Otranto; there they embarked and passed over into the prov- 
ince of Apulia. When the report of their coming reached the 
inhabitants, the people were thrown into consternation. They 
traversed the province from end to end. Finally, they came 
to the city of Oria, bringing a letter, officially stamped with the 
royal seal,—the seal was the bulla* of gold,—that the king had 
sent to R. Shephatiah. 

And these are the words that were written in the letter, “I, 
King Basil, send word to thee R. Shephatiah, to have thee come to 
visit me. Come to me, do not refuse, for I have heard of thy 
wisdom and thy vast learning. I long to see thee; I swear by 
my life and by the crown on my head, that thy coming shall be 
in peace, and that I will send thee back safe to thy home. I will 
receive thee with honor, as I would one of my own kin, and any 
boon thou mayest ask of me, I will grant in grateful affection.” 

R. Shephatiah then embarked to go to Constantinople, which 
Constantine had built—may God shatter its splendor and the 


1 This passage leaves no doubt as to the Emperor Basil who was responsible 
for the persecution of the Byzantine Jews. It is in complete accord with the 
tradition of the Byzantine Chroniclers who exalt the founder of the Basilian 
dynasty as the defender of the orthodox faith, directing his zeal first against 
the “obdurate and recusant”’ Jews. Above, 17. 

2 Jeremiah 51, 5. 

’ Krauss, Studien, 43 n. 8. 

‘The seal used exclusively by the Emperor to bestow a boon, even to 
suspend, temporarily, the law of the land. For general official business the 
bulla of lead was used. 

Eitel, Ueber Blei- und Gold Bullen im Mittel-Alter; Sabatier, Revue 
Archéologique XVI 99; Du Cange, Glossarium; Schlumberger, Sigillographie 
de L’Empire byzantine, 8. 


6a 


6b 


TRANSLATION 71 


power of all its people-—And God let him find favor in the 
presence of the king and of his court. 

The king led him intoa discussion of the Law, and then ques- 
tioned him regarding the building of the Temple, and that of the 
church called Sophia, asking him to tell in which structure the 
greater wealth had been used. The king firmly contended that 
it was Sophia, for in its construction uncounted treasure had been 
used. But R. Shephatiah answered, in well-chosen words, “ Let 
the King command that the Scriptures be brought to him. 
There thou wilt find the truth as to which structure is the more 
costly.”’ He immediately did so and he found that the quantity 
used by David and Solomon was in excess of the amount counted 
out for Sophia, by 120 talents of gold and 500 talents of silver. 
Thereupon the king exclaimed, “R. Shephatiah, by his wisdom, 
has prevailed against me.” But R. Shephatiah answered, “My 
Lord, not I, but the Scriptures have prevailed against thee.”’ 

Then the king asked him to be seated with him at the royal 
table, to partake of refreshing delicacies and fruits. Golden 
dishes? were placed before him that he might eat in the cleanliness 
required by the Law. The dishes were drawn up and down by 
costly chains of silver, but no one could see the place from 
which they were let down before him. 

And Basil had a daughter whom he loved as the apple of his 
eye. An evil spirit tormented her. He could not find a cure 
for her. He spoke to him in secret and with earnest entreaty 
said, “Help me, Shephatiah, and cure my daughter of her 
affliction”; and Shephatiah answered, “With the help of the 
Almighty, I will surely do so.” He then asked the king, “ Hast 

1 The “Hagia Sophia” at Constantinople, originally built by Constantine, 
rebuilt by Theodosius the Younger, and restored by Justinian on a scale of 
rare magnificence. Grosvenor, Constantinople II 494. 

2 The text is in agreement with all other accounts of the lavish display of 
Byzantine royalty. Oriental in origin, this elaborate ceremonial was adopted 
and developed by Constantine and his successors “to astonish and overawe 
the native and the stranger, to maintain the prestige of the empire; to serve 
as a proper setting for the representative of Divinity, set like a statue of gold 
upon a mountain, to be worshiped by all the nations of the earth.”’ (Con- 
stantin. Porphyr., De Admin. Imperio, Prooem. 66-67)—De Caeremoniis, ed. 


Reiske, 3-5; 516-517; Ebersolt, Le Grand Palais de Constantinople et le Livre de 
Cérémonies 4ff; Baudrillart, Histoire de Luxe Privé et Public, II 331ff. 


6c 


6d 


6e 


72 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


thou any secluded place in which there is no uncleanness?” 
The king answered: “I have the beautiful garden of the 
Bukoleon.”! After looking about in it, he agreed to make use 
of the Bukoleon, which literally means the mouth of the lion. 
He took the maiden into it and exorcised the evil spirit in the 
name of Him that dwelleth on high, the Creator of height and 
depth, that founded the earth in his wisdom, the Maker of the 
mountains and seas, that hangeth the world over nothing. The 
evil spirit cried out, “Why dost thou help the daughter of the 
man who rules in wickedness and heaps affliction upon the 
people of the redeemed. She has been delivered to me by God, 
that I should humble and crush her. Therefore, let me be, for 
I will not come forth from my place.’”’ But he answered the evil 


spirit, “I will not heed thy words; come forth, in the name of. 


God, that he may know there is a God in Israel.”’? It came 
forth at once and tried to escape; but he seized it and put it into 
a leaden chest; he then covered the chest on all sides and sealed 
it in the name of his Maker, dropped it into the sea, and let it 
sink into the depth of the mighty waters. The maiden, quieted 
and cured, then returned to the king and queen. 

He now went to the king for his dismissal. The king came 
forth to meet him, placed his arm about his neck, brought him 
into his chamber, and began to tempt him to abandon his 
religion,’ and, with the promise of large reward, to induce him 
to accept the senseless error of his heathen belief. He walked 
about with him, and insistently urged him; he approached him 
with a bribe and appointed companions for him. When Shepha- 
tiah, the master, noticed the fanatic zeal and presumption, he 
exclaimed in a loud voice, “ Mighty Master, Thou overwhelmest 


' The favorite palace of the Byzantine emperors, built upon the walls along 
the Sea of Marmora. Its name was derived from a marble group representing 
a lion devouring a bull. 

Gyllius, De Topographia Cple, II 15; Ville-Hardouin, La Conquéte de 
Constantinople, 58; Van Milligan, Byzantine Constantinople, 269. 

2 This is the historical foundation for the popular legend among the Mediaeval 
Jews about an eminent sage Shephatiah who had cured the daughter of a 
certain King Basil of her possession and had thereby saved five communities 
from the persecution in which a thousand were overwhelmed. Graetz (V, 245) 
refers to it as an unconfirmed tradition. Zunz, SP 170. 

3’ Above, 18. 


7a 


TRANSLATION 73 


me with violence.” Thereupon the king arose from his throne, 
took him from among the people, and gave him permission to go. 
He sent him to the queen that she might give him her gift and 
blessing. And the queen questioned him about his affairs saying, 
“Hast thou any daughters or sons?” He accordingly answered, 
“Thy servant has one son and two daughters.” She then gave 
him the rings in her ears and the gird’e on her loins, and urged 
them upon him, saying, “ As my tribute to thy learning, give them 
to thy two daughters; in costliness there are none to be com- 
pared to them.” The weight of the rings was a litra of gold and 
the girdle was of equal value. 

When he was about to go, the king again called him and said 
to him, “Shephatiah, ask a boon of me and I will give it to thee 
from my treasures; and if thou dost not desire money I will 
give thee an inheritance of towns and cities, for I said in my 
letter to thee, that I would grant thy wish.” He answered in 
sorrow and bitter weeping, “If thou, my Lord, wouldst favor 
Shephatiah, let there be peace for those engaged in the study of 
Law. Do not force them to abandon the Law of God, and do not 
crush them in sorrow and affliction. But if thou be unwilling 
thus to fulfil my wish, grant for my sake that there be no 
persecution in my city.” The king exclaimed in anger, “Had 
I not sent a letter with my seal, and taken an oath, I would this 
very instant punish thee. But how can I harm thee, since I 
have bound myself in writing to thee, and cannot retract what 
I have said in my letter.”’ So he issued for him an edict,! 
sealed with a costly seal of gold, commanding that no persecution 
take place in the city of Oria, and therewith sent him in peace 
and honor to his home and people. 

Then the wicked king continued to send emissaries into all the 
provinces and ordered his agents to fall upon them; to force 
them out of their religion and convert them to the errors and folly 
of his faith. The sun and moon were darkened for 25 years,’ 

1 Above, 17. 

2 The word won which adds to the difficulty of explaining the chronicle’s 


statement regarding the duration of the persecution, may have been used 
loosely to complete the rhyme. Kaufmann, 499 note 3. 


7b 


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74 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


until the day of his death. Cursed be his end.t. May his guilt 
and wickedness be remembered, and his sin not be forgotten. 
May the recompense for his vileness and cruelty be visited upon 
the kingdom of Rome, that his royal power may be cast down 
from its high places and his dominion be removed from the earth, 
to bring cheer to the afflicted, and comfort to the mourners, 
that, in merey, we may soon see the time of fulfilment. 

After his reign, his own son,” Leo came to the throne; the 
Lord God had chosen him. May his memory be blessed. He 
annulled the cruel edict that had been enacted in the days of his 
father, and permitted the Jews to return to the laws and statutes 
of their religion, to observe their Sabbaths, and all the require- 
ments of their commandments, and the ordinances of their 
covenant, as of old. Praised be the name of their Rock that did 
not abandon them in th> hands of their enemies, that saved 
them from their despoilers, and delivered them from their 
oppressors. Praised be the name of God from the heights 
forever and ever. 

About this time the Arabians* began to invade the land with 
their armies, to overrun the borders of the kingdom of the un- 
circumcised, the country of the idolators; they carried destruc- 
tion into Calabria, threw their cities into confusion, devasted 
their provinces, razed their walls of defense. They advanced 
into Apulia; there they grew in power, attacked the inhabitants 
in force, shattered their strength and captured many cities, and 
destroyed and plundered. 

In those days there was in Bari,’ Saudan,°® the chieftain of 
the Arabians at the time, who held sway over the entire country. 

1 This is the only instance in which the chronicler singles out a Byzantine 
ruler for bitter remembrance and denunciation. 

2 Above, 19. 

3 Above, 20. 

‘The importance of Bari dates from the tenth century when it fell into 
Byzantine power. Strongly fortified by the Greek emperors, it became the 
capital of the province of Apulia and the residence of the viceroy. It had 
long been the principal port of embarkation for pilgrims to the Orient. Taken 
by the Arabians, it was their base of operations in Italy. 


5 In this account of the Moslem invasions of Italy, the name Saudan is 
repeatedly used as the nomen proprium of the commander of the garrison at 


7d 


8a 


8b 


TRANSLATION 75 


He sent messengers to the famous city of Oria, to make a treaty 
of peace with its inhabitants, promising not to deliver their land 
to destruction, only to exact tribute of them. But this was 
just a ruse, by which he planned to fall upon the city suddenly 
and overthrow it, and lay it waste. 

The governor of Bari sent R. Shephatiah to him, to hear his 
proposal, to receive his pledge, the document bearing his seal, 
that the negotiations might be properly completed with his 
official mark. Saudan, the commander, received him with honor, 
spoke to him cordially, and lavished attentions upon him in the 
presence of all the princes that had assembled to welcome him; 
and he detained him until it was almost Sabbath. He did it 
purposely; for he could not return to his city on the Sabbath. 
He would not let him go, so that he might not inform his master 
of the enemy’s plans. When R. Shephatiah became aware of his 
ruse he exclaimed, “Give me permission to go, for thou hast 
deceived me with thy cunning. But Saudan answered, “ Whither 
wilt thou go at this hour, the Sabbath is about to begin.” Again 
he said to him, “ Let me go, my lord, do not be concerned about 
me.” So he permitted him to leave, and he went. And when 
he set out, invoking the help of the Almighty, trusting in the 
Name of his Creator, and confident that God would aid him, he 
wrote some letters on the horse’s hoof, so that his journey might 
be quickly made; he rapidly repeated the Ineffable Name and 
the ground miraculously yielded before him. 

And when he reached the outskirts of his city, he called to 
the people on every hand, “Come forth in haste; flee from the 
outer city, for Saudan, the commander of the Arabians, with all 
his forces, is coming to take our possessions, to kill, to rob and 
plunder.”’ And as he drew near the governor of the city went out 
to meet him; R. Shephatiah told him what had happened to 
him, and they took counsel about the matter. So he arrived 
in the city before nightfall; he washed and bathed, and welcomed 
Bari. It is probably a title, designating the officer’s rank, a Hebrew adapta- 
tion of co\davos, soldanus and saogdan of the chronicles of the period. 


Kaufmann, 502 n. 1; C. Famin, Hist. d. Invasions Sarrasins en Italie 
(7-118) 399. 


ij 


Se 


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76 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


the Sabbath as was fitting, with rejoicing, with food and drink, 
with study of the Law, robed and adorned in festive garments, 
partaking of all its delights and at ease among them. 

And Saudan and all his host, arrogant and insolent, came by 
forced marches to attack them. He found the country deserted 
to the very gates of the city; and on the Sabbath, at the time 
of the afternoon prayer, having found no satisfaction, he asked 
for R. Shephatiah, saying, “Give me the man who violated his 
law, and profaned his Sabbath; their law ordains that he be put 
to death.” And R. Shephatiah answered fearlessly, by the 
power of his God that was in him, “ Why dost thou speak thus? 
There is no truth in thy words. My witness is in heaven, and 
all the people of my city can testify that I arrived while it was day; 
while the sun was up IJ returned and went to the bath; I washed 
and bathed and returned to my house, and welcomed the Sabbath 
with proper sanctification, in obedience to the command of my 
King and my Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, my God.” 

And Abu Aaron, the Aaron mentioned before, was still in the 
city at the time; he had come to the city of Bari situated on the 
seacoast, built facing the sea; and Saudan came forth to meet 
him and bestowed great honor upon him. Aaron remained with 
him about six months. Saudan’s love of him was more wonderful 
than the love of women. While he remained with him, Saudan 
did not swerve from his good counsel. Aaron informed him 
clearly on everything that he asked of him, as though he were 
consulting the Urim. The wisdom of his instruction was 
acknowledged during all the time he remained there. 

But one day as Aaron awoke from sleep, the spirit of God 
began to urge him to return to his native land. He went to 
the seacoast and looked about and found a ship ready to sail 
for Egypt. He immediately embarked upon it. The ship began 
to move at great speed. In anguish Saudan sent out ships to 
overtake it; but the master, by the power of the Great Hand, 
uttered the Name, and the ships could not approach it. The 
sailors tried to return to the place from which they had set sail, 


but the ship cou!d not reach the shore. When the commander 


Se 


9a 


9b 


TRANSLATION 77 


saw this, his anger subsided, for he perceived and understood 
that miracles were being performed by the master’s power. 

Thereupon the commander exclaimed, “O my master, my mas- 
ter; my father, my father! my horsemen and my chariots, 
why hast thou left and forsaken me? Accept my prayer, return 
my lord, take my wealth and treasures, do not leave me alone!”’ 
Aaron fittingly answered, “My way is plainly ordained by Him 
that excelleth in power; I cannot change it. Inquire of me and 
I will tell thee what thou desirest to know, before I leave thee.” 
So he questioned him about many things, and Aaron gave answer 
in keeping with his questions. Finally he asked, “ Will I enter 
Beneventum?” And Aaron answered, ‘Thou wilt enter; not 
in joy, but through sad compulsion.” As he foretold, so it 
happened. And Aaron went rejoicing to the quiet of the in- 
heritance which he had left in his native land; he reached his 
home to live in abundance and content, in prosperity and joy, 
and gave thanks and praise to his Guardian and Creator that 
had brought him back, safe and happy, to his home. 

I will now proceed to tell of the wonderful things that were 
done by R. Hananeel. He had a cousin, named Papoleon, who 
died very young. On the day of his death, the brothers of R. 
Hananeel were away at Beneventum on business. So he delayed 
burying him in the tomb of his fathers, waiting for his brothers 
to come and weep over their dead kinsman and to give him 
proper burial. To prevent the body from decomposing and 
becoming putrid, he wrote upon a piece of parchment the Name 
of God, his Master, and placed the parchment under the dead 
man’s tongue. The Name brought him to life, and raised him, 
and he sat up in bed. He repeated the Name, and gazed at it. 
During the night preceding the day on which the brothers re- 
turned, they had an astonishing dream: an angel of God seemed 
to come in a vision and speak the mysterious words, “Why do 
you vex the Lord God, and do things which are not right? God 
putteth to death and you bring to life. You should not do so. 
You should not tempt the Lord your God.” But they did not 
know what R. Hananeel had done. When they reached their 
house he came out to meet them; they went in to see their 


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78 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


cousin and found him sitting on his bed; they knew nothing of 
what had occurred, of the Name (that was) under his tongue. 
When they heard what had been done, they wept bitterly and 
said to their brother, “Thou wast able to bring him to life, and 
thou canst put him to death.” In sadness and anguish R. 
Hananeel then approached his cousin and said, “Raise thy 
mouth, that I may kiss thee.”’ The boy opened his mouth. R. 
Hananeel, kissing him, put his hand under his tongue, and took 
therefrom the Name written on the parchment. As soon as 
the Name was taken from him, his body fell back upon the bed. 
So the body returned to dust and decay, and the soul returned 
to God who gave it. 

I will give thanks to God and declare His works, and speak of 
that which should be told, which happened in the city of Oria in 
the palace called Hegemonia, to R. Hananeel, the brother of 
Shephatiah, who was on the verge of death, and whom the 
Exalted One brought forth to deliverance, from darkness to 
light. It is the duty of his descendants, heirs (pillars) of nobility, 
to give praise and grateful recognition to his Name, and at all 
times say before Him Hallelujah. 

One day the archbishop! questioned him regarding various 
matters recorded in the official archives, and eventually entered 
into discussion? of the calculations that were prescribed for 
determining the appearance of the new moon. On the morrow 
of that very day there was to be New Moon day, which, according 
to Israel’s custom, was to be held sacred. He asked him in how 
many hours the new moon would appear. R. Hananeel answered 
by naming a certain hour. But he was mistaken. The arch- 
bishop disputed his opinion and said, “If that is thy calculation 
on the appearance of the moon, thou are not skilled in calcula- 
tion.” KR. Hananeel had not given thought to the time of the 
appearance of the New Moon, but the archbishop had calculated 
it and knew; he had cast his net for R. Hananeel, and would 

1 The designation #yeuwv, originally that of a military or political leader, 
was later applied to the primate of the Greek Church. Gay, Les Higowménes, 
284; Krauss, Studien, 105 n. 3, 4. 


* Graetz, V 229; Giidemann, II 12, 24, 37, 39, 230; Kohler, Disputations, 
JE IV 614. 


10a 


10b 


TRANSLATION 79 


have caught him in his snare had not the God of his salvation 
come to his aid. And the archbishop said to him, “O wise 
Hananeel, if the new moon appear as I have calculated, thou 
shalt do my will and adopt my religion, as my gospel teaches, 
abandon thy faith, and the ordinances of thy law, and accept 
my religion, my empty doctrine of error. If it be as thou hast 
calculated, I will do thy will. I will give thee my horse, assigned 
to me at the (ceremonies of) New Year’s day, the value of which 
is 300 pieces of gold; and if thou care not for the horse, thou 
mayest take its value instead.” They accepted the conditions, 
and agreed to abide by what they had spoken, before judges and 
magistrates and before the prince that ruled over them. That 
night the archbishop ordered men to go to the top of the wall and 
towers, to note the exact moment of the moon’s first appearance, 
and observe the portion that appeared. 

When R. Hananeel returned to his house, he went over his 
calculation and found his error, by which he had failed in his 
reckoning; his heart grew faint and melted within him, no 
strength was left in him. But he roused himself to entreat God 
and His favor, the Ancient Help, from the beginning of time, 
to show His marvelous power in his need, to lift him from the 
walls of the pit. He went to his brothers and all of his kin and 
told them of the trouble that had come upon him, that they 
might make earnest supplication to God; perhaps He would 
hear their cry, and would intervene with all his signs and wonders, 
as He had marvelously done in Egypt for his forefathers. When 
it grew dark, he went to the roof of his house, looking to Him on 
high, to whom praise and exaltation are due. As the time of 
waxing approached, and the moon was about to shine, he called, 
in distress and tears, upon Him that heareth the supplication of 
His beloved, saying, in his prayers to the God of his hope, “O 
God, Ruler of the universe, nothing is hidden from thee, my 
thoughts are revealed to Thee. [ have not been presumptuous; 
I have innocently erred and committed folly. And now, O 
God of my praise, may my prayer come before Thee; arise, to 
help me, O God of my salvation; forgive my error and pardon 
my wrong doing, so that [ shall not suffer punishment; else my 


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80 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


death is better than my life. Do not destroy the work of Thy 
hands, and do not withdraw Thy kindness from Thy servant; 
overlook the transgression according to Thy measure of grace 
and mercy; in Thy great goodness pardon my iniquity; give ear 
to my prayer and supplication; accept my plea and cry of afflic- 
tion; hear my entreaty for Thy sake, O God, and I will extol 
Thee in the assembly of the elders, and give homage to Thee 
in the company of the upright.” 

And He that is enthroned amid the praises (of Israel) heard 
his prayer. The moon was obscured and did not appear until 
the next night. In the morning he went to hear the decision; 
the archbishop summoned him in the presence of all the people, 
and said to him, “Thou knowest as well as I that the new moon 
appeared as I had determined in my calculations; I was not 
mistaken; I had given much thought to it, and knew I had the 
correct answer. But who can inflict punishment on thee? Thou 
hast found exemption from thy Master like a son that escapes 
punishment by caressing and coaxing his father.” So he gave 
him the 300 pieces of gold. R. Hananeel distributed them among 
the poor and did not take any of the money to his own house. 
Then his brothers and friends assembled and gave praise and 
thanks to the Eternal One, that saveth His servants from 
affliction, and bringeth them from darkness to light, at all times 
their Help, mercifully sustaining His people with shield and 
place of refuge. 

I will now return to the incident of which I have above written 
in part, regarding Theophilus who fell by his sin, and who was 
condemned to death by strangulation. As he went out to be 
executed all the people gathered about him at the sound of his 
bitter outcry. The governor of the city came upon them and 
drove off the multitude and said to the man, “If thou wilt 
abandon thy religion and truly adopt mine, I will save thee from 
an unnatural death.”” He nodded approval, for he yearned to 
save himself. The ruler at once had him taken to his palace. 
But upon questioning him, he found him loyal to the religion of 
the Hebrews. He then said to him, “I helped thee and took 
thee from the hands of the executioners, but thou hast lied to me 


11b 


lle 


TRANSLATION 81 


and mocked at me. I will punish thee with severity and with 
cruelty, with horrible torture.” He began to strike him, to beat 
him with fiendish blows; he cut off his hands and his feet, and 
cast him into prison and confined him there. 

There was another Jew in prison with him, a God-fearing man, 
who brought him food and drink every day. When none was 
set aside for him, he would give him some of his own; he himself 
looked after him until an entire year had passed. And on the 
eve of the Day of Atonement, on which the people of God makes 
atonement for its sins, this Jew brought food and drink to him 
and ate with him. And Theophilus had a young daughter. 
He said to his companion, “Go bring witnesses, for I wish to 
give her in marriage to thee.” He answered, “My Lord, thou 
art a man of distinction and I am one of the lowly; if thy kinsmen 
hear of this, they will tear me to pieces like a fish.” ! But he 
said, “No man rules in my house; no one, no member of my 
family has authority over my daughter; she is in my power 
alone.’ He went forth and found three witnesses, and before 
them Theophilus offered his daughter in marriage. Then he 
said, “Go in peace; hereafter thou wilt not again find me.” 
After the festival this man returned to look for him in the prison 
house, but he did not find him, alive or dead, for God had taken 
him. May God forgive his iniquity, pardon all his sins; may 
his soul rest in His realm of bliss. 

R. Shephatiah was once walking about the streets of the city 
at night, and he heard the sound of wailing in the house of a 
neighbor and friend; he heard one woman speaking to another, 
the one above saying to her companion below, “Sister, take the 
child and keep him and together we will eat him.” He listened 
closely to her words; he immediately went in and took the child 
from her. Those women were not daughters of men, but demons 
who were passing in the night.2, He brought the child to his 
home, and showed him to his wife. They recognized him and 
concealed him in his bedroom. The child’s father and mother 


1 Talmud, Pesahim, 47; Dembitz, Services, 27. 

2 The Chronicle truly reflects the belief prevailing throughout the mediaeval 
world that demons were ever seeking to prey upon men. Michelet, La 
Sorciére. 

7 


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82 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


had passed the entire night in anguish and in bitter weeping and 
lamentation, and in the morning had taken him out to the grave- 
yard to bury him. As they were returning from the place of 
burial to their home, R. Shephatiah came to see them, after the 
custom of those who comfort mourners, and questioned them 
about their son, as to what sickness he had had, and what 
affliction had taken him off. They replied, ““O master, he sat 
with us until evening; he ate at the table with us; we retired to 
our beds; when we awoke from our sleep we found him lying 
dead among us. All night we wept, in sorrow and anguish, and 
read the prayers for the dead, and in the morning we went out 
to bury him in his grave, by the side of his fathers.” Thereupon 
R. Shephatiah, to console them, answered, “I must tell you that 
I cannot agree with what you say; take me to the grave in which 
you have buried him; for your son is not in the grave, he is still 


alive; I will bring him to your house, and, with the help of God, — 


will deliver him alive and well.” So they went to the grave and 
looked about, but they found nothing but a broom, such as is 
used in sweeping the house. R. Shephatiah then returned to 
his house with them; he told them all that had happened, and 
restored the child to them. And they praised Him that heareth 
prayer, that heareth (the cry of) the Jews, that ruleth over the 
wind. 

R. Shephatiah had a daughter named Cassia, of rare beauty, 
of genial and charming disposition, and he loved her devotedly. 
Her father wished to have her marry but her mother did not 
wish it. Whenever anyone came (sent) to ask her in marriage, 
her mother would turn him away by saying, “ My daughter is a 
woman of high station, and her father is a distinguished man; 
if we do not find one like him, I will not let her come out of the 
house. If there be one like her father in mastery of the Law, of 
tradition and scripture, in the interpretation of Talmudic prac- 
tice and in the knowledge of decisions, in the understanding of 
Sifri and Sifra, in ability to explain and apply the principle of 
major and minor, in familiarity with the mysteries of Binah and 
Hokmah,? and all secret lore, in wealth and eminence, in influence 


1 Dembitz, Services, 50ff. 


12b 


TRANSLATION 83 


and authority, in his grasp of the statutes and commandments, 
in reverence and modesty, if he have every good quality, (I will 
give her in marriage to him, as we should).”’ 

One night, while R. Shephatiah was about to recite his prayers 
—as was his custom to pray, declaring the power of the Eternal, 
chanting songs of praise and sanctification, making entreaty to 
God, with psalms exalting and seeking the refuge of the shadow 
of the Almighty, with tuneful melody invoking Him that rideth 
upon the clouds, finding strength and security before the throne 
of His enduring might, trusting and resting in the Lord that 
dwelleth above, magnifying Him whose majesty is in the heavens, 
that laid the foundation of the earth by commandments and 
statutes, that spread out the heavens by ordinances of joy, that 
established the firmament by the Everlasting Law; Him, whose 
voice is mighty upon the waters, whose glory is above the heavens, 
—it happened that his daughter arose from her bed, and, in her 
sleeping gown, stood before him, to pour the water for him, that 
he might wash his hands; he noticed that she had arrived at 
the time of maturity for marriage. At the conclusion of his 
prayer, he returned to his wife, to rebuke her, to shame her, to 
emphasize the truth of his words, saying with great vehemence, 
“T have a precious dove, without blemish. She has arrived at 
maturity to be a crown to her husband, and my brother seeks 
her in marriage for his son Hasadiah. I have followed your 
advice and have not found happiness for her; I have violated the 
ordinance of the Scriptures and disregarded the words of the 
sages.” 1 The next morning as he was leaving his house to go 
to the house of prayer, he called to his brother R. Hananeel. 
He quickly came to him and heard him say, “It is my intention 
and earnest desire to give my daughter to Hasadiah thy son, 
for it is best that I give her to him.” And R. Hananeel in extreme 
modesty fell on his knees before him. When they concluded their 
prayers, he invited the congregation to come to his house, and 
gave his daughter in marriage to R. Hasadiah, son of R. Hananeel 
the brother of R. Shephatiah. R. Amittai, the brother of the 
distinguished bride, wrote, in her honor, the poem, “The Lord 


1Mishna, Aboth V 13; Mielziner, Jewish Law of Marriage and Divorce, 71. 


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84 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


that from the beginning telleth the end,” to crown her with charm 
and beauty, when this bride and groom were united in marriage. 

R. Shephatiah had grown old;! God had blessed him with all 
good qualities; He that dwelleth on high had endowed him with 
learning, distinguished him with wealth and large possessions; 
and had favored him with a worthy, upright son; father and son 
were without fault. And R. Hananeel was equal to them in 
eminence and uprightness. ‘They were ever moved by the fear of 
God, brothers and devoted comrades, gracious in friendship, at all 
times engaged in the study of the law and the commandments, 
eagerly observing the ordinances of God, zealously extolling the 
power and splendor of their King, earnestly declaring the honor 
and majesty of their Master, exalting their Creator with precious 
crown and diadem; acknowledging their Maker’s might, evening 
and morning, in the assembly for prayer. All the days of their 
life they sorrowfully bewailed the captivity and the destruction 
of the Temple; they lamented the persecution in bitter anguish 
as long as they lived; they invoked Him that turneth back- 
ward the wise, and entreated Him by whose wisdom the depths 
are laid open; that hath set bounds for the rivers and seas, that 
He might confound the plans of the enemy, and destroy his 
kingdom; they prayed to Him that aboundeth in mercy, for 
understanding, that He might defeat and annul the edict of 
persecution. Through their supplication to the Most Exalted, 
the decree was not carried out beyond the other side of the sea. 
He saved His servants devoted to His laws, from contamination 
(filth) and corruption, and from the loathsome waters (of bap- 
tism); from the enforced worship of the deaf and dumb, and 
from adoration of the blind: from the worship of idols. He 
roared against their foes with the voice of the thunder; He 
visited His wrath upon their enemies and persecutors, and 
delivered His beloved ones from the power of their foes; He 
rescued their souls from the raging fire, so that they might be 
eagerly devoted to the Law, and might relish the odor (fragrance) 
of the spices and perfumes that have of old been stored and 
sealed in the treasure houses of Eden.—R. Shephatiah died in 


1 Halper, Post-Bibl. Lit. II, 96. 


l3a 


TRANSLATION 85 


peace; he closed his life in happy devotion to the Judge of the 
widow and the Father of the orphan; leader among the wise, 
he tasted of the cup of the first parents, which the first serpent 
brought upon the first and last generations.’ 

On New Year’s day R. Shephatiah alone was thought worthy 
of the honor of sounding the Shofar, for the glory of God through 
His people. On that day he was weak, prostrated by sickness. 
But the whole congregation urged him insistently, saying: “Our 
master, arrayed in light, the radiance of our glory, the light of 
our eyes, blow the Shofar for us; as long as God spares you, no 
one else shall blow the Shofar for us.”’ They continued to urge 
him and he arose to blow it. But he did not have sufficient 
strength and could not produce the proper sounds. The good 
man calmly accepting the judgment against. him said to them, 
“My children, may this be a sign for good unto you; because of my 
transgression time has turned against me.” He left the house of 
worship and went to his home and lay upon his bed. The entire 
congregation followed him and entered his bedchamber. Turn- 
ing his face to them, he said, “I am going to my eternal rest, to 
my portion among the fathers of old, and I tell you dear children, 
my three beloved sons, that Basil the oppressor and persecutor 
is dead. He passes on before me, bound in chains of fire, de- 
livered to the demons of destruction. My God, whose name is 
the Lord of Hosts, has sent me to go forth to meet Basil and to 
stand in judgment against him, for all the evil that he has 
committed against His people, to blot out his name and the 
name of his posterity, to destroy him root and branch.” So 
they noted the day and hour. Soon afterward the report 
reached them, announcing that Basil the oppressor had died; 
the letter came just as the good man had foretold. It was 
_the custom of the emperors of Constantinople, whenever an 
emperor died, to make proclamation by letter, in Bari, giving the 
day and the time when he had passed away. “Praised be He 

1 The author is not to be held too strictly to his initial promise of an orderly 
presentation of the family traditions. Here, with the story of this ancestor’s 
death, having led us to believe that he has made use of all the material relating 


to him, he loosely appends other traditions that he seems hitherto to have 
overlooked. 


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86 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


who alone doeth wonders, who destroyed him in this world and 
shut him out of the world to come. Praised be His name and 
the name of His glory. I shall be gathered to my people and 
shall go to my place and as for you my children, my devoted 
ones, the assembly of my people, may God be with you,—He 
that dispenseth death and life, I am that I am, reviving the 
faithful children of Benjamin and the lion’s whelp (Judah).” 

After the death of Shephatiah, who had served God without de- 
ceit, and, with constant devotion, studied the mysteries of the High- 
est, faithfully loved the Lord and obeyed Him with all his soul and 
might, and, with all his heart, had magnified Him, there arose 
R. Amittai! his beloved son, who eagerly adhered to the ways of 
his father, and did not stray from the statutes of his Creator. 


The God of his father was his help. He continued his school, 


to promote, with the sages of his company (circle), the study 
of the law of God. The day before he died, his father had de- 
manded this of him, that he should maintain the assembly of 
teachers, and direct it properly, so that the teachers and pupils 
might not be disbanded. He held the assembly together, carried 
on instruction with the help of the rabbis and sages, and ex- 
pounded the Torah, systematically, in its length and breadth; 
his principles of interpretation of the Commandments of God 
and His covenant were those of his ancestors. His soul lamented 
the destruction of the Temple, and grieved deeply over the 
persecution, so long as he lived. 

One day he went out to his vineyard, his estate beyond the 
limits of the city. On that day a stranger, a wise man and true 
servant of God, had died. And the elders of the community 
sent word to him asking him to come and join them in doing their 
duty to the dead, to mourn for him and bury him, to show the 
respect enjoined by the Law.” He said to them in reply: “Come 
to me, beyond the limits of the city; I will wait for you and go 

1 The former nebulous figure of this prolific writer of synagogal poetry is 
here brought into clear relief. The authorities had doubtfully assigned him 
to the time of the destruction of the first Temple and again, to the close of the 
eleventh century, after the first Crusade. 

Kaufmann, 506; Landshuth, 46; 


Zunz, Lit. 106, 166, S. P. 185. 
2 Schulchan Aruch, Yore Dea 374. 


l4a 


14b 


14c_ 


TRANSLATION 87 


with you to the place of burial, and will recite the prescribed 
prayers for the dead.’”’ The entire community came out to 
bury the man. R. Amittai conducted the burial service for him, 
and all the people in lamentation wept for him; R. Amittai 
lamented him in a dirge which he had especially composed for 
him. This is the beginning of the poem in which he mourned 
him, “O hospitality, O exile! they that do not know Thee, 
make sport of Thee; they that confess Thee, cry out in sorrow.” 
His brother, R. Moses, a teacher of children, was there; he 
sneeringly whispered to the bystanders, “They that confess and 
know Thee, are overwhelmed with afflictions.” R. Amittai 
heard him; and ever after he kept in mind the offense of that 
teacher. A long while afterward, a married woman was suspected 
of sin, and the community met to investigate her conduct and 
pronounce judgment; they found no witness against the woman 
except R. Moses, the teacher of children; there was no one to 
testify with him. R. Amittai then said to him, in accordance 
with the law, “ Hast thou another witness, as the Torah requires?” 
But no other witness appeared with him. Thereupon he ordered 
the clerk to put him in ban. He pronounced judgment against 
him as ordained in the Law, visited his own device upon him, 
compelled him to leave Oria, and sent him into exile. He went 
to the city of Capua, and from there journeyed to Pavia.! 

R. Amittai was gathered to his people. He left a son named 
Abdiel. And Abdiel had a son whose name was Baruch, who 
was not learned in the Law as his fathers had been. In the days 
of Baruch there was in his house a copy of the Sefer Merkaba 
which R. Shephatiah had used all his life. One day, on the eve 
of the Sabbath, on which God rested from all His work, as the 
day grew dark, and as there was no one to kindle the light before 
the Sefer Merkaba, a woman, defiled through her uncleanness, 
-—may she be blotted from the book of life, and kept out of the 
world to come—came up to kindle the light before the Torah. 

11t is suggested by Kaufmann (508) that this may be the Moses of Pavia, 
who through a few imperfect references, is regarded as one of the early masters 
of Talmud study among the Jews of Italy. 


Zunz, SP 19; Halberstam, in Kohut, Aruch I. 38; Giidemann, Die Juden 
in Italien, 14 note 3. 


l5a 


88 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


And the wrath of God fell upon that family; many died of the 
plague, only a few remained. And there was a wise Jew among 
them, who saw the meaning of the visitation. He seized the 
book, put it into a leaden case and cast it into the deep waters. 
The sea receded almost a mile. After he had thrown the case 
into the sea, the waters returned within their bounds; the evil 
decree was immediately annulled, and the plague was stayed. 
But the memory of Baruch perished; his lamp was extinguished; 
so that he left no one to engage in the study of the Law; he had 
no sons; only one daughter. 

R. Hasadiah, son of R. Hananeel, had a son whose name was 
Paltiel And R. Paltiel begat a son, R. Hananeel, and a 
daughter, Cassia who was distinguished for piety; she begat 
a son, R. Paltiel, who was a master of astrology. 


In those days the Arabians with their armies, with Al Muizz 


as their commander,! overran Italy; they devastated the entire 
province of Calabria, and reached Oria, on the border of Apulia; 
they besieged it, defeated all its forces; so that the city was in 
dire distress; its defenders had no power to resist; it was taken 
by storm; the sword smote it to the very soul. They killed most 
of its inhabitants, and led the survivors into captivity. And the 
commander inquired about the family of R. Shephatiah.2 He 
sent for them and had them appear before him. And God let 
them find grace in his eyes. He bestowed His kindness upon 
R. Paltiel, His servant, and let him have favor before him. 
And Al Muizz brought him to his tent, and kept him at his side, 
to retain him in his service. 

One night the commander and R. Paltiel went out to observe 
the stars. As they were gazing at them, they saw the com- 
mander’s star consume three stars, not all at one time, but in 
succession. And Al Muizz said to him, “What meaning dost 

+The word p, designating the Arabian commander of the garrison at 
Bari, is a hebraized form of Caytus, Caetus, &c. of the Greek and Latin 
sources. Kaufmann, (ZDMG 51, 436) derives it from Ka’id, as suggested by 
Heinemann (Geschichte der Normannen, I, 28.). 

Du Cange, Glossarium; Lupus Protospatarius, Migne PL 155, 23 note 16; 


131. 
2 Above, 21. 


15b 


15e 


15d 


TRANSLATION 89 


thou find in that?” R. Paltiel answered “Give thy interpreta- 
tion first.” The commander replied, “The stars represent the 
three cities, Tarentum, Otranto and Bari, that I am to conquer.”’ 
R. Paltiel then said, “Not that, my Lord; I see something 
greater; the first star means that thou wilt rule over Sicily; 
the second, that thou wilt rule over Africa, and the third, that 
thou wilt rule over Babylonia.” ! Al Muizz at once embraced 
him and kissed him, took off his ring and gave it to him, and 
took an oath saying, “If thy words come true, thou shalt be 
master of my house and have authority over all my kingdom.” 

Before seven days had passed, a message was brought to Al 
Muizz. The princes of Sicily? sent messengers to him saying, 
“Know that the Emir is dead. Come thou in haste and assume 
authority and dominion over us.” He thereupon gathered his 
troops; with all the captains of his army he embarked on his 
ships and crossed over into their country, and became their 
ruler. Then he had faith in the words of R. Paltiel, and did not 
depart from his advice, either to the left or to the right; he 
appointed him master over his house and domain. He (R. 
Paltiel) entered his service as his vizier. 

Some time after, Al Muizz went to Ifrikiya, leaving his brother 
as ruler over Sicily; and R. Paltiel went with him. There he 
grew in eminence, and added to his fame; he was second in 
power to the Caliph,* his renown spread through all the cities. 

At that time, the emperor‘ of Greece sent an embassy with a gift 


‘The name of the third conquest has been variously interpreted. In the 
opinion of Bacher it refers simply to Bologna. Such, at first, was also the view 
of Kaufmann, remarking that in the light of subsequent history Egypt must 
have been intended. Later (ZDMG 51,), he finds support for this interpreta- 
tion through the aid of D. H. Muller and Goldziher who show that Babylonia 
was frequently used for Cairo and thus for Egypt as a whole. 

Ville-Hardouin makes use of the phrase ‘Babylone d’Egypte’ with the 
_ explanatory remark, ‘Aujourd’hui Caire.’ (Histoire de la Conquéte de Cple., 
282). 

2 Above, 23; Quatremére, Jour. As. 1837, 207. 

3 Above, 26. 

‘The author has the one term aby for the titles of eminent authority. 
Emperor, Governor, Commander, Caliph, &c. 

The text freely employs the words Roman, Greek and Macedonian as 
equivalents of Byzantine. The same interchange of these denominations is 
found in the Khazar document edited by Schechter, JQR, N.S. III 194 note 22. 


l6a 


16b 


16c 


90 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


to seek audience with the Caliph of Ifrikiya. The ambassador 
came in state as was the custom of the Greeks. He asked 
who was warden of the palace and master of the royal ceremonies. 
An Arabian said to him, “It is a Jew that gives permission to 
enter and leave; he isin authority over all the Caliph’s dominion; 
and the Caliph always follows his advice. No one can see him 
or enter the palace to appear before him without the order and 
consent of the Jew.’”’ But the Greek, in his insolence and pride, 
in his folly and stupidity, replied, ‘““I would rather leave this 
city and return to Constantinople, to my master who has sent 
me hither, than deal with the Jew for permission to let me speak 
to the Caliph.” These words reached the ear of R. Paltiel; he 
was informed of all that had occurred. He then commanded 
throughout the royal court that no one approach him (the envoy) - 
with a sign of greeting or respect, and that no one take notice of 
him where he had set up his tent. For about ten days he kept 
aloof, in anger and raging fury. Then, he meekly came up to ask 
mercy and pardon, begging that he forget his senseless conduct, 
and forgive the offense which he had committed in his stupidity, 
and the words he had spoken in his folly. R. Paltiel granted 
that he might come, but not on that day. On the third day, 
he admitted him into his presence; he received him with honor 
and splendor, and overwhelmed him with lavish gifts, entertained 
him with music, and dances, and an abundance of perfumes, 
with precious stones, onyx and opal, and with the costly and 
beautiful treasures of the realm. He received him in state, from 
the gate of his palace, to his dining hall; he adorned the entire 
hall with hangings of silk and wool; the floor of the court and 
the walls of the palace were beautified with tapestry of scarlet 
and fine linen and costly ornaments; he walked in upon rugs of 
silk. The Greek saw R. Paltiel sitting upon a couch, and, for 
himself, he found a chair of gold. He took his seat and entered 
into conversation with him, questioned him about the law of the 
Hebrews, about his kin, and family and native land; R. Paltiel 
answered him properly and intelligently. And he gave order 
that water be brought to wash his hands and mouth, in a dish 
and bowl of onyx and jasper. Secretly he commanded the 


TRANSLATION 91 


servant to break them, after he had washed. The servant! 
carried out the command of his master; he brought the bowl, 
and its dish; he poured the water over his master’s hands, and 
then fell at his feet, and broke the dishes. Thereupon the Greek 
arose in amazement and grew pale. But R. Paltiel laughingly 
turned to him and said before all gathered about him, “ Why art 
thou disturbed; why dost thou rise from thy seat in amaze- 
ment?” The Greek envoy replied, “Because I have seen great 
damage done. ‘There is no way of replacing the priceless bowl 
and dish that have been broken.” R. Paltiel then questioned 
him about the king of the Greeks, as to whether dishes of gold 
or of precious stone were used in his palace, and the Macedonian 
ambassador said, ‘“ Dishes of gold are used in my master’s house.” 
To which R. Paltiel replied, “Thy master is a man of limited 
means. Dishes of precious stones and gems are more costly 
than dishes of gold; for those that are made of precious stone, 
cannot be restored when broken, but those of gold, when dam- 
aged, can be mended without loss; many dishes of rare stone and 
gems such as thou hast just seen broken in my house, are broken 
in the palace of my master, the Caliph.’”’ Thereupon he dismissed 
him with honor, to the king of Greece who had sent him. 

R. Hananeel, the son of Paltiel, asked permission? of the Caliph 
of Ifrikiya to cross the sea and go to Italy, for at the time of the 
captivity of Oria, those that were spared sought refuge in Bari 
and Otranto, bringing their household goods with them, and 
saving the money of others with their own. So R. Hananeel 
went to Constantinople, and, sorely depressed and _ afflicted, 
entreated the King to receive him with favor, to grant him the 
authority, under royal seal, to travel through all cities of his 
kingdom and, with his will and consent, enter any place in which 
he might find property belonging to him. He took the sealed 
_ letter of authority and went to the city of Bari. There he found 
an old copy of the Scriptures that had been his, and ornaments 
of the clothes of women, and sewed garments that they wore. 

1 Above, 24. 

2A Jewish master of astrology was immune from the persecution that 


the mass of his coreligionists suffered, and had unquestioned access to the 
royal presence. Lacroix, Science and Lit. in the M. A., 211. 


17a 


92 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


The teachers and sages! of Bari disputed their possession with 
him, in accordance with the principle? that he who saves anything 
from an invading army, from the water or the fire, may claim it 
as his own; for this was the teaching of Rab, in the interpretation 
of the Mishna. He'replied, “It is as you say, but our sages 
have also taught that ‘the law of the land is the binding law’ ;* 
here is the written edict with the seal, which the Emperor issued 
for me.”’ So they divided with him. They gave him the robes 
and the copy of the Scriptures, and he left them the remainder 
as a compromise. He went down to Beneventum and the entire 
community respectfully welcomed him. He remained there an 
entire year. Then he made his home there, and married one of 
its women, Esther, daughter of R. Shabbethai, of the family 
of R. Amittai. In His mercy He turned in kindness, and be- 
stowed His compassion and visited His favor and truth upon the 
house of R. Shephatiah and R. Hananeel, men of His choice, 
who, serving Him as long as they lived, did not stray from his law. 
For it is His promise to do good to those who look to His salva- 
tion and wait for His help. He favored him in his old age with 
worthy sons, R. Samuel, his first born, the beginning of his 
strength, and R. Shabbethai,* and Papoleon, and Hasadiah. | 
Hasadiah went to Ifrikiya with R. Paltiel, the son of his sister 

‘ As in all the sources bearing upon this period of the history of the Jews in 
Italy, the Chronicle maintains the accepted tradition regarding the eminence 
of the sages of Bari. Graetz, (VI 259) however, denies them this distinction 
and finds nothing more than meaningless praise in all such tributes as that 
contained in the current proverb, “from Bari goeth forth the Law, and the 
word of the Lord from Otranto”’ (quoted by Rabbenu Tam—latter half of 
twelfth century—in his principal work, Sefer ha-Yashar, 74a). 

E. N. Adler, REJ 67, 40; Giidemann IT 17. 

2 A principle upheld by the authority of Rab (Abba Arika, d. 247) was 
generally followed as final. As a distinguished pupil of Judah ha-Nasi and 
founder of the Academy of Sura, who elevated Babylonian Jewry to a place 
of leadership which it held for several centuries, his interpretation of the Law 
was accepted as binding. ‘‘He found the Law an open, neglected field and 
fenced it in.”” (Talmud, Hulin 110a). 

3 An ordinance of Samuel, master of the Academy of Nehardea (165-257). 
He was the leading authority of Babylon in civil law. 

Talmud, Gittin 10b, Baba K., 113a, Mielziner, Introduction to the Talmud, 
44; Reinach, Histoire 44. 

* Krauss, Studien, 87 n. 6. 


TRANSLATION 93 


Cassia. R. Samuel came to the city of Capua and there married 
a woman named Albavera. Some time after, R. Shabbethai 
and Papoleon set out with the gift which was sent by the prince 
of Amalfi to R. Paltiel. After the manner of young men, they 
entered into conversation with the pilot of the ship, and said, 
“Let us write the Name, so that we may move at great speed, 
and reach the coast of Ifrikiya tonight.” So they wrote and 
pronounced the Name of Him that dwelleth on High, and cast 
the writing into the waters, and they said to the sailors, “ Keep 
very close watch on us, that we do not fall asleep.”” But their 
sin brought calamity upon them and deep sleep fell upon them; 
a storm wind tossed them about on the water; the ship capsized 
and the men sank in deep waters. The power of the Name took 
the ship to Spain and Narbonne and to the sea of Constantinople; 
then brought it back to the sea of Ancona, and finally wrecked it 
before the city of Amalfi. 

Upon the death of the ruler of Egypt, the elders of Egypt, 
through reliable couriers, wise and chosen messengers, sent a 
letter authorized by the princes and nobles and the people of the 
cities and villages to Al Muizz, Caliph of the Arabians,! in which 
they said “ We have heard of thy mighty deeds, the violence of 
thy wars, which thou hast waged in thy wisdom, of thy sagacity 
in which thou excellest the princes that formerly ruled over 
the kingdom of Syene? (Egypt). Now, come to us, be king over 
us, with the consent of our princes and all the eminent men of 
our country; we will be thy subjects, thou shalt be our king.” 

He considered the proposal; R. Paltiel was summoned; and 
they took counsel together as to what they should do, for it was 
a long journey, through a barren and desolate land; all the way 
there was no water; no supplies of food; no tents or places of 
shelter. R. Paltiel set out in advance and established the 
camps; he erected bazaars and places for lodging, appointed 
merchants for them, and supplied them with bread, water, fish, 
meat, garden produce, and everything necessary for soldiers 
coming from the distant cities. Then the Caliph and princes 


1 Above, 23. 
2 Ezekiel 29, 10. 


18a 


18b 


94 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


and courtiers set out; they pitched the tents of their encampment 
three miles from Egypt (Cairo). All the nobles of Egypt joyfully 
came forth to greet them, their chiefs and governors, their 
officials and princes and the masses of the people as well. They 
came up to him and prostrated themselves. He made them take 
an oath of allegiance, by their law, and accepted their hostages, 
princes of the people. Then R. Paltiel entered Egypt with a 
division of the forces, detailed them on the walls and towers, 
that they might guard the city, the palace and public buildings, 
and appointed sentinels to be on guard, day and night, on the 
outskirts and the borders. And then the Caliph with all his army 
marched in. The nobles and all the people gathered about him, 
and again swore allegiance to him. He walked into the court 
and took his seat in his palace, on the throne of his dominion — 
and majesty. They put the sceptre into his hand, and the royal 
crown upon his head, and he reigned over the kingdom of the 
South after his heart’s desire. | 
Once, on the Day of Atonement, when R. Paltiel was called 18e 
to read from the Torah, the whole assemblage arose and remained 
standing in his presence, the sages, the scholars that were in the 
school,! the young students and the elders, the lads and children; 
the entire community was standing. He called to them saying, 
“Let the old be seated, and the young stand. If you refuse, I 
will sit down and refuse to read, for this does not seem right to 
me.” When he finished reading, he vowed to the God of his 
praise 5000 dinars” of genuine and full value; 1000 for the head 
of the academy and the sages, 1000 for the mourners of the 
sanctuary, 1000 for the academy of Geonim at Babylon, 1000 
for the poor and needy of the various communities, and 1000 
for the exaltation of the Torah, for the purchase of the necessary 
oil. In the morning he arose early and hurried, for he was always 
zealous in observing the law, that his evil inclination might not 
prevail over him to prevent his carrying out his good intention; 
he engaged men and horses and mules, and provided guards, and 
sent them forth with the caravans that travelled through the 


1 Abrahams, Jewish Life in Middle Ages, 317. 
2 Above, 64, n. 2. 


TRANSLATION 95 


deserts. And they delivered the gold pieces, as R. Paltiel their 
master had ordered, and distributed them among the schools 
and synagogs, and the mourners of Zion and the poor of the 
communities of Israel. 

The growth of his authority which the king, through his 
bounty, had bestowed upon him over his royal domain, having 
appointed him ruler over the kingdom of Egypt and of Syria 
as far as Mesopotamia, and over all (that had once been) the 
land of Israel as far as Jerusalem, his eminence and power and 
wealth? with which the king had honored and distinguished him, 
are recorded in the chronicles of the kingdom of Nof? and 
Anamim (Egypt). 

When Al Muizz was stricken with the sickness of which he 
was to die, he placed his son‘ on the throne and entrusted him 
to R. Paltiel, his beloved minister, that he might be his adviser 
and helper and guardian, that he might govern the kingdom with 
vigor and success. The Caliph died and slept with his fathers 
and his son reigned in his stead. All his days had been passed 
in happiness and security, in peace and content. 

When (the young caliph) sat upon the throne of his kingdom, 
the officials appointed to conduct the affairs of Egypt told him 
lying stories about R. Paltiel, continually striking at him with 
the sharp sword of their tongues, and covertly slandering him.° 
The Caliph’s fury raged against them; he repeatedly rebuked 
them. He told R. Paltiel, the prince, all they said. So together 
they devised a plan of dealing with them. R. Paltiel and his 
wife, and friends and all his family went out to his estate, the 
royal garden that the Caliph had presented to him. 

In words of affection the Caliph asked, “Whither has our 
beloved R. Paltiel, the interpreter of mysteries, gone?”’ The 
attendants assembled in the court answered “He has gone out 
for recreation, with his friends and all his kin, to the estate ® which 

1 Here and elsewhere the Chronicle dwells upon the chief objects of con- 
sideration and benevolence. Below 97. 

2In Hebrew Text 19 1. 7 read "wy. 

3 Ezekiel 30, 13, 16; I Chronicles 1, 11; Kaufmann, 536. 

* Above, 27. 


5 Above, 27. 
6T, e., garden-palace. 


19a 


19b 


19¢ 


19d 


96 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


the king has given him.” Thereupon the king summoned his 
magistrates, princes and courtiers, and said to them, “We will 
go and pay our respects to the venerable scholar in my service, 
R. Paltiel, so highly esteemed and worthy of honor at my 
hands.”’ He set out in his chariot and took with him all his 
lords and princes. The king did this with set purpose; all of 
this being done as a ruse, ordered by the word of the king, that 
he might find opportunity to show R. Paltiel his intense love for 
him, in the presence of the courtiers and princes of the people, 
to confound his accusers, and cover them with shame and con- 
fusion. And as the king drew near the tent of R. Paltiel, he 
commanded that no one should inform him until he reached the 
tent. The king descended from the chariot and R. Paltiel 
approached him. The king, out of his love for him, embraced, 
caressed and kissed him, and took hold of his hands. They 
walked away together and took their seats apart from the 
company. The others remained where they were. Then the 
jesters and players appeared; they took up the harps and tim- 
brels and made merry before them with the pipes, with stringed 
instruments and songs, playing upon timbrels, cymbals and 
harps, from morning until the decline of the day in the afternoon, 
until evening when the shadow begins to move backward. The 
king then rode off and returned to Egypt (i.e., to the city), 
So the face of the accusers was covered with confusion, the 
enemies and slanderers of R. Paltiel were put to shame. On 
that day their tongues were silenced, and they did not again 
speak ill of him. Praised be He that protecteth His saints, 
that redeemeth and saveth the soul of His servants. Praised 
be He and praised be His name; praised be the glory of God 
from His place. 

One night R. Paltiel and the king were walking in the open 20a 
and they saw three bright stars disappear; in an instant their 
light had vanished. And R. Paltiel said, “The stars that have 
been eclipsed represent three kings who will die this year; and 
they will soon be taken off. The first king is John! the Greek, 
the second, the king of Bagdad, in the north”; then the king 


1 Kaufmann, $387 n. 2; ZDMG 61, 441 n. 2. 


TRANSLATION 97 


hastening to interrupt him said, “Thou art the third, the King 
of Teman,”’! but he replied to the king, “No, my Lord, for I 
am a Jew; the third is the king of Spain.” But the king said, 
“Thou art in truth the third, as I say.” 

And in that year R. Paltiel died, the leader of the community 
of the people of God, settled in Egypt and Palestine, in Palermo? 
and in Africa, and in all the territory of the Arabians (Ishmael), 
for he ruled over the (ancient) kingdom of the Hebrews, over that 
of the Syrians and Egyptians, over the domain of the Arabians 
and the land of Israel. May his soul be bound in the bundle 
of life, secure in Eden, enclosed in the Garden of God, reposing 
by the side of the Fathers. 

In his stead arose his son R. Samuel, a great man, highly 
esteemed in his day, (worthily) filling the place of his father. 
He brought the remains of his father and mother in caskets to 
Jerusalem, also the casket containing the bones of R. Hananeel, 
his father’s uncle, which had been embalmed. He devoted * 
to the Most High, that it might be counted as righteousness 
unto him, by Him that rideth upon the clouds, 20000 drachmae 
for the poor and afflicted, for the sages and teachers giving 
instruction in the law, for the instructors of the children and 
the readers (of prayer); and for the oil of the sanctuary, at the 
western wall of the inner altar, and for the synagogs and com- 
munities, far and near; for those who mourned the loss of the 
Temple, those who grieved and sorrowed for Zion;‘ for the 
academy of the disciples and the teachers (in Palestine), and for 
the sages of Babylon in the academy of the Geonim. Blessed 
be his memory. May his life be prolonged, partaking of the 
feast of the living, sustained through the treasures of God. 

I® will ascribe righteousness unto my God; I will praise 
and magnify my Creator. I will exalt, in words of song, the 
Lord, God of my veneration (prayer). In the assembly of the 

1 Jeremiah 49, 7; Kaufman, ZDMG 41, 438 n. 2. 

2 The name of the capital city probably implies Sicily as a whole. 

3 Above, 96 n. 1. 

4 Krauss, Studien; Bacher, REJ 32, 149 n. 1. 


5 The double alphabetical acrostic beginning here is best explained as an 
elegy in memory of Paltiel. 


8 


20b 


20c 


20d 


98 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


congregation I will utter praise to His name, in fear and trembling 
entreating Him that worketh wonders, acknowledging the great- 
ness of His glory; proclaiming the eternal sway of His power, 
with tuneful words of prayer I will call upon Him. Telling of 
His glorious deeds, I will at all times speak of His dominion, 
treading His paths in uprightness, proclaim Him to coming 
generations. Eagerly, fervidly will I delight in prayer and song. 
The majesty of my God in heaven, I will ever declare. The 
might of His signs and wonders He hath shown in all lands; He 
will reward His afflicted children for their radiant good deeds. 
He visited His mercy and kindness upon the descendants of 
His two beloved servants; He extended over the house of His 
servants the reward of the merit and righteousness of His pious 
ones; He saved them from (the oppressor’s) fury and violence, 
and delivered them from trouble and distress; with boundless 
love for them, He delivered them from the affliction of cruel 
laws; He adorned them with that which is more precious than 
pearls, sweeter than honey to the palate. He (exalted) in purity, 
whose eyes are upon the faithful, upheld them and provided 
them with food. 

They had lived in Oria, in prosperity, for seventeen Jubilee 
(periods), when the king of the Arabians fell upon them,! expelled 
them from theland. Madly and violently he overran and devast- 
ated Calabria; he subdued the country from the harbor and extend- 
ed his conquest into the province of Longobardia; he made havoe 
in the land, and reduced it to the extremity of distress; he took 
them captive to his country to let their souls languish in utter 
desolation. But the Exalted One in heaven, that looketh upon 
the depths and causeth them to tremble, that commandeth and 
controlleth all the powers (foundations) of the universe, let the 
children of His upright servants find mercy before Him; from 
above, the merit of the ancient fathers was remembered for their 
sake. The king looked about carefully and wisely saw among 
them the sage, a master of astrology and secret wisdom. He 
elevated him over all his counselors and gave him charge of his 
treasures. In his time the Jews prospered as the Jordan in the 


1 Kaufmann, 553 note 2. 


TRANSLATION 99 


overflow of its waters. He was appointed vizier and prince,} 
second in authority in the palace of the king, making happy use 
of his possessions; refuting the unbelievers and heretics. He 
prospered and shone in his greatness, his giving became more 
extended, his offerings and gifts increased, to those who loved God 
and His law; he devoted and distributed money to the poor of 
Jerusalem and the cities (of the Dispersion); he remembered the 
established schools, the sages and scholars; uprightness issued 
from his loins. With a master’s grasp of the Law, he defeated 
the traitor and heretic, and helped and saved the innocent. 
Alert to do good, serving God in love, he kept His command- 
ments with ardent and happy devotion; an upright man, con- 
secrating gifts to Him whose majesty and power reach to the 
heavens; patron of the disciples of the schools; giving strength 
to the broken-hearted, through intense, sincere affection. 

The awe-inspiring God bestowed upon them knowledge, under- 
standing and judgment, (sound) wisdom and power; He that 
putteth on light (as a garment) adorned them with insight and 
learning, with abundance of wealth and honor. The God of 
light blessed them with the spirit of reverence and whole-souled 
humility; the Creator of the world heartened them with (His) 
ordinances, and led them in the way of wisdom whose gain is 
better than silver, more precious than pearls. He that answereth 
the remnant of His upright ones in time of trial girded them with 
strength, gave them dominion and authority; by the power of 
His spirit He sustained the resplendent heavens for their descend- 
ants and led them safely; He was their shield and place of 
refuge; a high wall and fenced city; a tower of strength to their 
children, a help and place of shelter. He gave them the rewards 
of victory and He enlarged their boundaries; He prospered the 
_work of their hands; He bestowed His blessing upon their 
treasures, and granted peace and security to their homes, content 
and happiness with their possessions. 

1 This reference to Paltiel as Nagid, the earliest that we have to this 
highest dignity among the Jews of Egypt, may well mean that it was first 


bestowed by Al Muizz upon his favorite vizier. Kaufmann, 535 note 1; 
Mann I, 252. 


100 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


When their descendants came to Capua, God let them win 2la 


the favor of their rulers; the rulers of the city took R. Samuel 
to their palace and appointed him supervisor of their treasury, 
that he should have jurisdiction in their realm, over the ports 
of the harbor, over the income of their markets, and over the 
finances of the various departments of the city. And the God 
of our fathers helped him. And he visited R. Paltiel at times 
to exchange greetings, and remained several days each time. 
God granted him rest on every hand and made him happy with 
the knowledge of the law of delight and enriched him with prop- 
erty. He was engaged with all his means in having Torah scrolls 
written and he erected houses of prayer. God gave him a 
worthy son, whom he named Paltiel, walking in the ways of God, 


devoted to the law of Israel. He did not stray from the ways of ~ 


his father, and was steadfast in the fear of God, in wisdom and 
understanding; his home did not lack any of the blessings of God. 
The prince appointed him governor and director of all the affairs 
of the city; over prince, noble, counsellor, judges, officials, and 
all administrators, over all of them he was chief magistrate. His 
was the authority to receive and dismiss, to direct and command. 
But he held fast to the statutes of God and His Law, and loved 
His commandments and ordinances, serving Him with all his 
heart; declaring His unity with all his soul. He restored the 
synagog of his grandfather as a house of prayer, for the glory 
of Him that dwelleth above. He had no children; for those that 
had been born to him had died when they were but two or three 
years of age. In his anguish and affliction, he prayed in fervent 
supplication to Him that inhabiteth the heavens. And God 
from the heavens of His splendor heard his prayer and cry, and 
in His mercy and kindness gave him an only son. He named 
him Ahimaaz. He sent him to school to be instructed in the 
Law, to give thought to the Scriptures, the unfailing testimony, 
to their wholesome teaching, their sublime commandments, to 
(learn to) observe their precepts. 

And I, Ahimaaz, son of R. Paltiel, son of R. Samuel, son of 
R. Hananeel, son of R. Amittai, the servant of God; in the 
first month of the year 4814 since the heavens were made, asked 


22a 


TRANSLATION 101 


a boon of Him, that He might enlighten me in the mysteries of 
the everlasting delight, that He might confirm me in His perfect 
Law, handed down thousands of years ago; that He might lead 
me in the right path and help me; that He might hearken to 
my prayer, to let me succeed in finding the genealogy of my 
fathers. I looked to Him and trusted in His holy name and 
besought His grace and mercy. He has granted the wish I 
have so ardently asked of Him. I have pondered and examined 
and have found what my heart desired, the lineage of my family. 
With God’s help I have arranged and written it in poetic form. 
I have begun at the very beginning; from the captivity of 
Jerusalem and the destruction of the house of our (my) glory, 
through the captivity of the city of Oria, in which I have settled, 
I have come down to the arrival of my fathers in Capua; and 
have ended with my own time and that of my children. In a 
book I have collected and compiled and narrated it for the 
generations to come. I have clearly unfolded and explained it. 
I give praise to my God, and glorify His majesty and power, 
and in His glorious presence I offer honor and thanks that He 
has helped me complete the book I have planned. In the month 
of Sivan I have finished it; under the sign of the Twins,! under 
which our Torah was given, in the year 4814, in accordance with 
my desire, I have completed it from beginning to end. Praised 
be the radiance of His Shechina’s glory and the splendor of His 
divine throne; exalted be His name, and the name of the glory 
of His Kingdom. 

I will attempt to determine the number of years from the days 
of R. Shephatiah and R. Hananeel to the time of R. Ahimaaz, 
son of R. Paltiel. The persecution decreed by Basil the wicked 
tyrant occurred in the year 4628. R. Shephatiah and R. 
_ Hananeel lived at that time. After R. Hananeel’s death there 

was his son R. Hasadiah; R. Hasadiah begat R. Paltiel; R. 
Paltiel begat Hananeel. And in the year 4700 there arose, with 
the help of the Lord of wonders, R. Samuel his son, who ended 
his devotion to the Lord of Hosts when he was 68 years old. 
And in the year 4748, R. Paltiel, his son, was born; in 803 his 


1 Above, 62 n. 7. 


22b 


102 THE CHRONICLE OF AHIMAAZ 


soul returned to his Master. In 777 his son R. Ahimaaz was 
born. May He, enthroned among the Cherubim, be his help 
and support and prolong his years, for the sake of His throne of 
glory. In 798,! his son,? R. Paltiel, was born, and in 804 God 
blessed him with a second son whom he named R. Samuel. 
May the Lord God of Israel, grant them long life. In their 
day, may the altar’ be rebuilt and the sanctuary, called the 
hearth of God; and the redeemer appear, Menahem ben Amiel,' 
Nehemiah ben Hoshiel, to gather and redeem the scattered 
children of the house of Jacob, shortly and in our day, in the 
day of the whole house of Israel. Amen. 

In the year 4814 of the creation of the world which God has 
created, I compiled this book of my genealogy with the help of 
God, my refuge, not by any wisdom that is in me, or intelligence 
of my own, but by the grace of the Lord God my master. 


Praised be He that giveth power to the faint and deliverance 


to him that hath no might.® 
Completed by Menahem son of Benjamin. May the Creator 
of the left and the right, be their help. 


1 This date of Paltiel’s birth, 4728, would more correctly be 4798, as sug- 
gested by Kaufmann. 

2 Zunz, SP 427. 

3 Ezekiel 43, 15, 16. 

4 A fervid expression of the belief, common in the author’s day and dating 
from the third century, in the Messiah, son of Joseph, appointed to assemble 
and redeem the outcasts of Israel, to make ready for the final salvation under 
the Messiah, Son of David. A conspicuous figure in rabbinical apocalyptic 
literature, he is known by these names, symbolical of Divine comfort and 
redemption. Buttenwieser, Messiah, JE VIII. 511 6b; Greenstone, The 
Messiah Idea in Jewish History, 185; Hamburger, REIT, 768. 

5 Isaiah, 61, 2; 40, 29. 


23a 


INDEX 


Aaron b. Samuel ha-Nasi, 

(See Abu Aaron). 
Abba Arika, 92. 
Abd-al-Rahman III, 24, 35. 
Abdiel, 87. 
Abrahams, 2, 39, 45, 60. 
Abu Aaron, 14, 29, 38, 63, 76. 
Abu Tamim Maad. (See Al Muizz). 
Abulfeda, 25. 
Abul Husein, 22. 
Academies, of Babylon, 30, 37, 40, 94, 

O75 

of Palestine, 40, 94, 97. 
Acrostic, 6, 97. 
Adler, E. N., 3, 12, 59. 
Agobard, 43. 
Ahasuerus, 66. 
Ahimaaz, 1, 6, 9, 15, 28, 38, 41, 100. 
Akiba, 62. 
Al Aziz, 27, 95. 
Al Hakam II, 28, 35. 
Al Hamadhani, 5. 
Al Harizi, 5. 
Al Katib, 26. 
Al Muizz, 14, 15, 21, 26, 28, 88, 95. 
Alexandria, 36. 
Amari, 15. 
Amittai, 11, 13, 29, 62. 
Amittai b. Hodia, 12. 
Amittai b. Shephatiah, 14, 86. 
Apulia, 20, 70, 74. 
Arabians, 12, 20, 35, 74, 88, 98. 
Aronius, 43. 
Ascoli, 1, 68. 
Babylonia, 89. 
Bacher, 2, 25, 66. 
Bagdad, 38, 62. 
Balzani, 33, 36. 
Bari, 20, 74, 85; 

Sages of, 41, 92. 

Baruch, 14, 87. 
Basil I, 9, 12, 16, 17, 20, 32, 47, 53, 70. 


Daughter of, 17, 71. 
Basil II, 62. 
Basilika, 20, 48, 49. 
Baudrillart, 71. 
Bédarride, 42, 44. 
Beneventum, 64. 
Benny, 67. 
Berliner, 6, 42. 
Bikélas, 33. 
Binah, 62, 82. 
Blau, L., 64. 
Bloch, Ph., 62. 
Bologna, 89. 
Book of Genealogies, 4, 60. 
Book of Prefect, 57. 
Bottadeus, 66. 
Brandileone, 49. 
Brody, 2. 
Broydé, 48, 54. 
Bukoleon, 18, 71. 
Bulla, 70. 
Bury, J. B., 10. 
Buttenwieser, M., 102. 
Byzantine Empire, 34, 35, 36. 
Jews of, 6, 36, 37, 39, 45. 
Byzantine Studies, 30, 58. 
Cabala, 13, 29, 62. 
Calabria, 20, 74. 
Captives, Legend of the Four, 3. 
Capua, 15, 28, 100, 101. 
Cassel, 50. 
Cassia, 82, 88. 
Castelli, 1. 
Cedrenus, 53. 
Chalandon, 10. 
Codes, Imperial, 46, 48. 
Commerce, 43. 
Constance, 47. 
Constantine, 31. 
Constantine VI, 35. 
Constantine (Porphyrogenitus) 9, 17. 
Constantine, Constitutions of, 47. 


103 


104 


Constantinople, 34, 45. 
Cordova, 35. 

Cumont, 53. 
Cunningham, 43. 
Curtis, 10, 45. 

De Goeje, 23, 25, 26. 
Delare, 10. 

Dembitz, L. N., 63. 
Depping, 39. 

De Sacy, 5. 

De Saulcy, 19. 
Deutsch, 6. 

Diehl, 58. 

Dieterich, K., 7. 
Donnolo, 1, 4, 21, 30. 
Dresdner, 42. 

Du Cange, 58. 

Dukes, 6. 

Diimmler, 43. 
Ebersolt, J., 71. 
Ecclesiasticism, 45, 47, 48, 52. 
Ecloga, 48. 

Education, 32. 

Egypt, 15, 21, 23, 93. 
Eitel, 70. 

Eleazar, 13, 62. 
Eleazar of Worms, 63. 
Eliezer’ Ashkenasi, 62. 
Ellinger, G., 8. 
Embassies, Byzantine, 16, 24, 90. 
Eppenstein, 3, 32, 41. 
Euphrates, 61. 
Exorcism, 29. 

Famin, 75. 

Fatimites, 21. 
Feudalism, 11. 

Finlay, 9, 17, 56, 57. 
Fostat, 32. 

Freeman, E. A., 30. 
Gaeta, 63. 

Gay, Jules, 3, 11, 78. 
Gebhart, E., 8. 
Gelzer, 30. 

Genesius, 16. 

Geniza, 3, 32, 58. 
Geonim, 32, 40, 41. 
Georgius Monachus, 51. 
Gerbert, 33. 


INDEX 


Gibbon, 58. 
Giesebrecht, 33. 
Ginzberg, L., 32, 41, 62. 
Goldziher, J., 89. 
Gothein, 33. 


Graetz, H., 1, 17, 30, 46, 56. 


Grammar, 34. 
Greece, Jews of, 44. 
Greenstone, J., 102. 
Grosvenor, 71. 
Giidemann, 30, 36, 39. 
Gyllius, 72. 
Haggada, 40. 

Hai Gaon, 30, 37. 
Hakemani, 5. 
Halper, 84. 
Hamburger, 102. 
Hananeel, 14, 62, 77. 


Hananeel b. Paltiel, 88, 91. 


Hariri, 5. 
Hartmann, 9. 
Hasadiah, 15, 88. 
Haskins, 10. 
Heinemann, 88. 
Heyd, 44. 
Hokmah, 62, 82. 
Huart, 5. 
Hymnology, 7. 
Ibn Daud, 3. 
Ibn Ezra, 69. 
Ibn Killis, 26. 
Iconoclasts, 11. 
Ifrikiya, 21, 23. 
Ikschids, 23. 
Irene, Empress, 47. 
Isaac Comnenus, 10. 
Italy, 39. 

Jews of, 10, 29, 31, 45. 
Jacobs, 3, 43. 
Jafar Ibn Obaid, 22. 
Janin, 49, 50. 
Jannai, 6, 40. 
Jauhar, 25. 
Jaulmes, 8. 
Jebb, 10. 
Jekutiel, 62. 
Jew, the Wandering, 66. 
Jochanan b. Zakkai, 67. 


INDEX 105 


John, Emperor, 28, 96. 

John the Grammarian, 24. 

Joppa, 63. 

Jose b. Jose, 6. 

Joseph b. Gorion, 10. 

Josippon, 10. 

Jovian, 47. 

Julian, 147. 

Justinian, 47. 

Kairowan, 23. 

Kalir, 6, 40. 

Karpeles, 5. 

Kaufmann, 2, 4, 7, 13, 21, 25, 26, 58. 

Kohler, K., 78. 

Krauss, 8., 3, 20, 32, 37, 44, 53, 55, 
58, 59. 

Kremer, 27, 56. 

Kriiger, 57. 

Krumbacher, 6, 7, 34, 56, 58. 

Lacroix, P., 91. 

Lambros, S. P., 19. 

Landshuth, 86. 

Lane-Poole, S., 23, 27. 

Lasch, B., 8. 

Law, 34. 

Lebeau, 58. 

Lenormant, 64, 68. 

Leo Grammaticus, 16. 

Leo the Isaurian, 9, 11, 47. 

Leo the Sage (VI). 3, 18, 45, 47, 54, 
74. 

Liturgy, Byzantine, 7. 

Lombards in Italy, 28, 42. 

Longobardia, 39. 

Louis le Débonnaire, 43. 

Louis the Pious, 20. 

Lupus Protospatarius, 55. 

Lyons, 43. 

Maimonides, 69. 

Mann, 68. 

Mansur, 26. 

Magqama, 5. 

Mauretania, 24. 

McCabe, 55. 

Medicine, 34. 

Menahem b. Amiel, 102. 

Menahem b. Benjamin, 102. 

Mercaba, 62, 87. 


Meturgeman, 68. 

Michael, of Amorion, 53. 
Michael III. (Drunkard), 9, 12, 19. 
Michael VI, 9. 

Michelet, J., 81. 

Mielziner, M., 83. 

Migne, 88. 

Monophysites, 52. 
Montanists, 47. 
Montesquieu, 58. 
Mortreuil, 49, 56. 

Moses b. Kalonymus, 63. 
Motassem, 24. 

Muir, 23. 

Muizziah, 22. 

Miiller, 15. 

Munro, 34. 

Muratori, 33. 

Mysticism, (See Cabala). 
Nagid, 28, 99. 

Name, the Ineffable, 75, 76, 77, 93. 
Nehardea, Academy of, 92. 
Nehemiah b. Hoshiel, 102. 
Neubauer, A. 1, 61. 


Neubaur, L., 66. 
Neumann, C., 30. 
Nicole, 57. 


Nilus, Saint, 39. 

Normans, 10. 

Novellae, 20, 57. 

Ogg, 8. 

Ommeyyads, 35. 

Orta 10,312;,13)15; 20, 21/737, 61,-66, 
70, 73, 78, 98. 

Otranto, 70. 

Ozanam, 33. 

Paitanim, 6, 15, 41. 

Paltiel, 14, 21, 22, 25, 28, 88, 94. 

Paltiel b. Ahimaaz, 102. 

Paltiel b. Hasadiah, 88. 

Paltiel b. Samuel, 15. 

Papoleon, 77. 

Paulicians, 52. 

Pavia, 87. 

Perles, 58. 

Persecution, 16, 42, 47, 50, 70, 73. 

Pertz, 45. 

Philosophy, 33. 


106 INDEX 


Photius, 9, 33. Shephatiah, 14, 18, 20,21, 62,7581, 85. 
Pilgrimages, 38. Shotwell, J. T., 8. 
Pishon, 61. Sicily, 23, 89, 97. 
Piyyut, 40. Silanus, 14, 68. 
Poznanski, 25. Silk Industry, 44. 

Po, 61. Sophia, Saint, 71. 
Prochiron, 49. Sorcery, 64. 

Prose, Rimed, 4, 5. Steinschneider, 2. 
Proselytism, Jewish, 50. Stéckle, 44. 

Psellus, 9. Straus, R., 45. 
Quatremére, 21. Sura, Academy of, 92. 
Rab, (See Abba Arika). Syene, 93. 

Rambaud, 9, 58. Symeon Magister, 16, 51. 
Ravenna, 11. Synagog, Liturgy of, 40. 
Reinach, 3, 42, 47. Tachkemoni, 5, 30. 
Rhodius, 9. Tana debe Eliahu, 30. 
Rokn, 28. Taormina, 22. 

Roger of Naples, 44. Taylor, 33. 

Romans, 69. Theodora, 9. 
Romanos, 7. Theodosius II, 47. 
Rome, 31. Theophanes Continuatus, 16, 51. 
Roscher, 48, 46. Theophilus, 67, 80. 
Saalschiitz, 67. Tignta Judaeorum, 45. 
Sabatier, 70. Tiraboschi, 33. 
Salerno, 34. Titus, 10, 61. 
Samaritans, 52. Universities, 34. 
Samuel, 92. Urim, 67. 

Samuel b. Ahimaaz, 102. Valens, 47. 

Samuel b. Hananeel, 14, 28. Valentinian, 47. 
Samuel b. Paltiel, 97, 100. Van Milligan, A., 72. 
Samuel Ha-Nasi, 63. Venice, 44. 

Sandys, 8, 9, 34, 56. Venosa, 1, 67. 
Saracens, (See Arabians). Ville Hardouin, 72, 89. 
Saudan, 74. Vogt, A., 18, 52. 
Schechter, 32, 65. Wattenbach, 33. 
Scherer, 50. Wayfaring, 38. 
Schlumberger, 58, 70. Weil, G., 16. 

Scott, 35, 36. White, A. D., 34. 
Sefer ha-Yashar, 62. Wipo, 33. 

Sefer ha-Kabala, 3. Zachariae, 48, 58. 
Sefer Yezirah, 1. Zoe, 10. 

Sellery, 34. Zonaras, 16, 19. 


Sergios, 7. Zunz, 6, 14, 31, 41, 62. 


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pasa ovyos ot bs py mbnpd ¢ sn Senda 4 np mown ania 
modo. at oan tp Seyow nbwen 559) axpynaxay woes See 
sya odyqw post odyyow maby omyon avons modo. ° pany 
smo mann Sys aye ods pa mew pa my Nan we) on 

ppp mn xdyp ym saa Sy ws ynnn wa Seinw 4 op 
naxaw yas nt Ssaan 4 myoyyr mivixa adver wx yas mdym yma 
mpty ad nyady pydy T395 wripa mvpino *poodsa awe nioyy) min 
pwn ovosnd oy odsS onsns abs omwy an ony 39 nN 
nad sanye Smisa wiped pow ony mpin “wnbndy paw monn AWE 
pn Soswon Sonn sSaxdy) oswm opinnn mbnp> mvp wnady paw 
nawd Sa. spond) pyeandy ovdnd naw bey odaxr pry Sy pynya 
MINI AY YN SyoI ANON NAN analy} ADIAd ny yr own 
snap obs 

‘Son ondy sdios swa poms ‘SSonnd aby naw vSxd pry 2 ins 
mova nyay op midnd xy now moan pox wwd mbap sy gins 
YwYD LITT AoyRX pI TnI AMMpd win naa ADdNd yma. nd 
ot od sy syd pena ymin pat ome imsdp mya oNeDA 
my ny Soa soe mayo ode msn may Sa mya mao ny 55a 
yd aw pwyp paws Sexi opax 553 ANA DON ONE por 
mad sypnn on mptyy mir ye ow yd som yon oat oD 
Uppy mtn) nn pln Ap) Anyo ody aay py pwn way 
DON YY TINY OND WIT APINDA oY AIP ODD A AY 


1 MS.oxd>. % MS.pam. ° K. for N. ‘on; on margin, DIN 8. 


‘MS. poor; K. pion. ‘> N, for MS. nayn. ° K. popdap. 
7 Inserted by K. ® So MS. * Beginning double alphabetical 
acrostic, pointed out by K., not indicated by N. 10 MS. p50n. 


WN. for MS. pn. 


Yom “DD 20 


Ja yy yppny 53S opp par myyos phys oo opm own span 
miwwn oy onder omy ond yay or opi say eam yinnd maw 
opm oman Swose 4 yyy ones onan odin man osdinn 
tSseney mde aydy pry vad) mpd) mand Sends 4 myns 

nadea: oye misdo3 wdyay yma qdon oa awe ymbdea nwa 
‘ppm anowonr odyaw sy benw pax Sony ova ons Ty DDN 
nisdnd oon at sap Sy ows on ada en soon ws Ww wry 
DMD) AD 

Sop. ome ow wa ne pom 1 no swe pdm mx adn i nyodsn 
mya pow nisdon andy nowy anys ayy x5 mad yan Send 
Anya ypwa wo 55 yA ynnan 2 do ymax ox aw don ny 
smmam ows 

pm osyp noxds Sy swe onvden ym indo eps Sy inawa 
oy 52a) paw owd sana Zo at Sends 4 5y omen yn dnd 
son Saende 35) s3n2 oa md Ba Da non bon owe anos ydy 
sin Senda 4 oxy ond mwyd ap oma syyyna sap mn oma 55 
yom|d andnady wad anmawn 55) pray pam ina wax S53 py ines 
synanna Sn 15 yn swe anyady 

my meno pap Swwds 4 nyo ws Ton mx Snons Sew qSyn 
nmvow> ana 93) PIM oy nnowd we. xyY OD INI AwN ovayr 
yaw spy vandyd soapd qdon ndver yma d soon swe yan no Sx 
nawon yin pip yp Sapa 352 omer ox Joon ond spy yapdy 
poyp 55) inazq2 a5) »>y2 San APM soon Syeudsp 4 yin yaDd 
Smee op mony ann nwyen 55) apsna awy goon ines phn wn 
man mynd sata by: myw nnn qSpn cap mpnpa ann bende 
nvia Somwynd nme wow padad «amis wr wan 55 pa Any 
pox oo) xdw oon anpno Senda 4 Saya apy qdin qdem naam pdpy 
yas Swabs ay mane yo T$en tay Saya ybon yunw sy 1d sand 
yom pmoy adm ya nN) spwIDy ID_ID AM IpY*N AID IPI NI 
p13 ynpY DYDS\NoM oYpNwNA wan oOFoynA wy odisr o425 on ww 
bao ondyny sina oer oD) anya on|d spme DDINAY OMIA 
byn mmo aayn ny ay oany anxd orn mp oyy span on Twp 
oe wda0) Dywwr sD wo sn omyDd 35% aw qdon 255% ond 


1 MS. YP mR). 2K. pn. ° K. for N. nyona. 
‘ MS. ney. 5 MS. pmypad, 


19 “DM “AD : 


p1373 MYON WISP DY IDID2 OMA anys om AmMby vabox aw 
vans) no$n ya mepsax nn $x Ayn ndmaa qd ow ayy ON 
ssain ondnd yapey non vp na anon dw mpm pow ow wot 
omy ndan mows: nym [xJonn on mown wd nym bad anyys 2 
‘POY OW INT WN YOR AD|ND mY ‘sp Sy oxy’D MIM ADIN nw 
MINT MMOD BD Oy KNIT NENT AyDON PSN pwn ms) AIAN 
sation saboxa may ams) Nope Dy sy nd 

oym penm opr nwa ompp oy “sprindey payy 75D non 
nyods ona os omdy ovo oy Ta ODO) nD. Own 
naan qnosna nonds swx pmnds pin prima wynw penn 0 
wos aby Any Foomp modna owen yaw ostp orden by ynosy3 
sivas Ansy ay wma vie ‘Syn 55) aw nyya isdy qb man 

wy mo onytd yoo ayy gain yoAd Sede a) mawnns DID) IN 
xd) mimo) oo oon Sa psy apy) aay pay asp) apinn ann Joon 
ma Dpnw pm mono mwy yd Senda 4 sayy modo mao oda 
boy moa pay way om) DD) ond ona Dem oman ona dem mind 
yap ody oswm Joon mbyy moespnn oan ofoend say sas 
ayaa oxy op pw Soy ody nwsy omynn pint ovdaNm nono 
yoo meta oyn nds 55) osm oo dym aydys minam oonnan 
 ypD nDoynA 2 npdy own ons ‘pinsy AYN OA 95 ynnwer Dd 
mbyon meyinn yoy moynn nmypo py oyna Seba 4 pon opn 
295 mid) pony syowd rvspw rpam mda) moder ma) an De 
pyn 55) own wap ten 55 py adem p23 yo van mina 55) ynep 
imap sos Sy abana sw syn Sx aby 0S yaw mew odyoy vdyx ow 
aon mode. yn) wea maby sna wn wpa wow dan anaswant 
Hwpr mx doo 

ypdp yyy wp mana apd Sewose 4 xop> Soa ona am 
py pM Onan ANwI DAwYn osm owsnm mann 55 
pndyad seer ond pyy rs omy on Sapa 55 ody open oem 
snxd avn Soya Pew Bw DWN PS oN SOA Sey fpawe ie 
payon ody Say ov ods nwon indan onbdxd ana ineap ovdwa 
naw Saab abs ombya ma ‘band abs ovondys aren wed ads 
pow np mina asd adsy pvaxdy pvsyd moap Sx ads: psa 


1 So MS. * K. for ‘M85 ov. 5 On margin. * MS. ooapnA. 
> On margin, Dywpn 55 WIT WD “D. ® So MS. 


pony “AD 18 


may onwsy Sep. pmypa may ov nd ov avand ayy mona, many 
Seon wan oN yyya Awy saym yt mdm aned waws my snon 
yan ad Spy tym wy Sy oom sine yan Sy pn ynoy win py 
ny) mone wa mse mdmdn anime admaa op envar wad odon saw 
sd sped pny ow ovr 55 120d) pre adwod yop Sends Ay mw yp 
sma Sya span oan mdvn od my my Jopnn Saas nbaaa and 
Soa ore Toon baw ws moawaw Seon pms Sx atin) Tay par ve 
mos owonwy an ‘Soa oytpen movn my Zomba. ow owonwn ant 
ppt. ant ‘Sop pep oe ap “Soy onson wes pyri id pwn 
ppm pay ond ox anda) naawa mapn ond psx apy yas by odsay 
bon oI WIS Any omaa aww AMw odsA mn popn °3a os 
sindsy swe ors Top bs indy paca ner $5 sans ona 
nad orn ays mepmas doo men Sew Senda pa Seon an 
a3 bb onsen AYaem mbna osysga nw nywaw mesos 
py ven ondy ixw one pond onna ‘Sydmnn anny idan wot 
wora JSon MND my AID) MNS WED Ne woIPdS Sra 4 Ady oA NOD 
inswoo movin Soa 355 amido omn 1b mwyd mon wp syed aynn 
soy omnn Sap) anpinay amwsa nynd oma Subp xyow opp Soa 
pw 2 (Dp won) mw spo nos by ssp ow axxo mon vad 
Sypn moyns 1d on ea sn san ym Fowady ony oman odyny 
mven mx 3 oa pw Ayn on by apdiny aman jp tpn jp 
mm ae amido sostoyman win Sas mower sin yo ond avn san 
xapom odyen 1S wn wy ayy onn > ySpn awe omnn oy ansa 
ae san inenp> Sapna $2) se wee. sy Sawer sxwon ond mom 
mow nox nw ovo mpdy SAnw inaw yap jo vanN ADDN Aw oY 
Yona yD) INH Nps Ton vas Aye. ‘nox 4 NM|wHD naw 4 na 
sux induo ‘woe Seon sy mmaw 4 mad onxoxy yon cpr oindom 
says ond annpx vn pow Tinany wo xd onyn wp 55 annaya 
ama yaa bene A oamapra oma ova Sma onary ‘Snedy any 
bye moepynaxa- doom 4 oy aby mston ayspm pevdiaay naw ay amen 
Mow NWR mw? OL AVA mp Na Sew 4) ANDD ininN 39 Swnde 4 
neo Syvnbp Ab swe anon oy pediaar naw 4 ody yo cane avanaty 


1K, for N. wn3. 2 So MS. °K. for N. orwiadn, 
* N. pian. ° N. nwm53. ° K. for N, my. * N. and K. 
for MS. in“n. . 


17 WOnY AD 


5 my mops pny exw casa wom ws mp why pm pasion 
axspowsa spoon tnx an es one Sy sata ate yo Nd Syenbp 
we Sy span po mynd pon nvedway axpmaxa pon mwa 
WON) PIB 7D OX Ny yd yaw2 Ayawr wn2 dy inyay DAD spwa 
endwnn S921 moda 523 Sey oma Sy aan Ans JOND 

sex oywa id onde ayown mya pyods aya om mxdp xd ayn 
ndbwonon bap) maa pra san ANN) moNA now yt ot ANS pows 
pdx sayy ymiowa ween 55 py yniap2 ova ymbn pap joa Pawar 
xS onyyo noo xd porno an Seba 4 satay poxn ore amy Sn 
inwo mn sim indy Syay amid Sy amas dwar pod dy Sxnwd 
syn my 

maby yoy Sereda ay medpp Sune mon yn meepmaxa mdy 7 ans 
boa yynen tnd aw om gia adyod aby aw abpmoy sa own 
ssdin miso 

sprpsba xa mwa ppd mnoe2 meeps op ep prt Top nbw yma 
snx xd may miavp2n ama wy maden na pa 1D Saw owry oA ow 
yam ayy Toon pryoayas S52 Sua sin) ean sewn Nn AY voy 
mysa oxy inenpd maddy anvad poo xd amend Soy wee pre qdom 
DT IMYT ADIN IMwwWI yNyAADy Any AMI AD Nw “A 
py mon andy. swe oorne Sx xowsnnips abysr anon ano aoe naw Ayn 
Soy yan oat Sede 4 ed) sand aden 5x wy sanns xd onan 
rp) 76S sda pos new nna aden ayna my) oy yn 1b awynn 
pyoyray pana Ayp2 Zon swys maw yeapad oS ye ons aba yoo 
ywam odany imew cor 595 sonny adny wpad opie aw sins 
pos mdbw on wha aw ses idspa 1S myn swe 1d Synnd mym 
yi wean web owbem pya om xiap aed on imiea yyy rad 
mp) waxa pwa a mba ypows oyy mons wa idan sm 
nnap i> avy Sy maa) poy pnonn moby sowsna ‘omy pawn 
ppsen 55 in pndoy paw saa doen myo apo an don sayy 
DDwIPD MIT MP) ANA ym TOY OM woN tw MAD Dw nydna 
Send 4 on xy Aadaa nana wy ambdyy moat wan AD preven Syn 
ew) ovata wy p22) ae seed am xsonp ayo wsyd) aww mona 
Smsn mawn yaw int paxn: wnnawonr ipin~py DMayn none 


1 N.for MS.aqqpm.  ? MS.o'w; Margin, Sjom.  * N. ovonnd. 
‘ B. for MS. nnd (cf, Exod. xxviii. 19). 5 K. mysion [mawn). 


wom “BD 16 


smb mpinnw awe Ayn soy a ow md53 inp qa cnr mddyn 
yow mas fy omov2 odin pI PRD) oD OMY ADw oI wndy 
on od ny maw dS nya maya sodon imedy aw ama ibys ao 
m meet mwyd oA dyn AD INNO ASwN wx nwNy AD pon 
ovndn andor nw 4 ox es omy awed oye xd) awed mona nwxn 
sy ay q> ew mnapa > my ems aya any ws pry oyad sya aon 
mwy mind wna pnd my xin wy ons ay ayo xd) ann anys 
nop sy saoindy mda insta tent woot navn 1d away aid 
smxvaad 35m yoo own) ANP 

qa wer 32 Sesayds ww Sesayy ya mm ay Ss ox ems 
wow iY mn MIA AAD IMI PII yD My yniaN. AN. AT Nd 
nav snoxdo dsp bx yaw naw saya ons oy mn moay 4 on wy 55 
posnd masapn sap sad pda sanw mn xd) mown mm mown oy 
odyaey ANAS NAN ONT MADD AA ANT ANA Nn ay onN oN 
MaI IMD WIN AMawYN. * ANY ANA AS san ApSin AND NNN NAA 
npdy pam) Sn Awyon pap InN I Pn ow oan Hyp Nw O34 
sn 5 syyws mined po om pwd vbwon ban ww sax sda) apn 
mya soy ampo Sy maw om no dsm poem sinm attnn ann 
poy mon xdw mao ys) 9 naw? PII IN ANY ADIN AA 
sna nox ox 13 9215 on xd) nawna 

Syowr ya pn Swede 3) Syemdse wow yo an Sean ya nto Ad 
Syrnds Aopen ya adm me? ND ke me meDD mDw Ans nar Syaon 
spand yoy paz2 

ayy omdy orp 2nynds omdena oy? odxyown onn om on 
yyy aed nypa saws ms ty say aaadp pas 55 iam aydow 
syd an wax noon yds yyo3 yn svar den 55 ypawar ody 
myawa opdin omsewomy pa wan) ayy we Ty anny mypain Pym 
ponad ona yad onan omds mbvy mpaw 4 nmaynn daw prpm 
dim yp py Fpna own» way Syd 4 by won nya ondsxn poya 
6y mowd yond synyd adm won bow 

3599 AIA NT wa oss2 wand wy Ssewdp a7 pypn nny ad day 
onwow arans atox > ons ayda oma xdy nya pans nwder tpn 
DYN DY AWN IONN ANN DwA NM ADD AMIN AD nynds dw 


1 MS. ND). 2 MS. nyn 5x1. 3 MS. pna; N. (jn3) pao. 
* K. suggests insertion of p'D)n. 


15 WDM “AD 


sroew on bo ods yen awry ND MT PP OY NIN 
yen saw cis yond ydy ommmpm wins Taw ypin ans px ids 
en pysyn ond ayn mows xa xd sawn nypny Ana n> xd an an 
mp2) xy jor Abn ‘ya Sy > pr aw AyD ya O95 priya wby 
yatn nos oo any Sapa bay new dy sow ana Sx bm ansy 
soaya5 ori ppd ommend qin sox ond sox poy odes orm wp NIT 
syn ‘SDs now ony newdy 22 pean oa poy opA maxd 
sop mban coxdo pa ox wx bw mydwdwa say yoed sam ann 
ayan boo wy pra tinydy oS pa manpd qho5 gow may 9 ody nde 
AY! OT SND) yo.) YRYNV ww) wor ow wow nsnd wyd> nwyy 
anon yD pyyn at p> ayan awyw Soa np °> myown mea Onn DDD) 
anon swan onde yon niow> ins nw xrpsworp ‘25D pow yin 
yas mydas amy pa tnyan no Joon owe nym on pm) one 
yoy Sx ADND UND FYNID DY ID ww WIND NAAM HDS MD AWE 
moo 2popy om soon * Sap 55 ynna 2 99 one worpp de Tbs 
SON WI OI PTY aN AN AWN AN NIT ND 

py na poy mon xds onds say awe may 3 nip vans on 
Sony wes Soa ayy) omy ane yny wr 59) snyd wn wy 55 pa) 
symm 9925 S90) se 

pind ny xdy Dy PIT YIN YTD OWA Ya “MN 4 Op woMnN 
Se ma mand ynnan span py ine prem yoys mn as ends) yyy 
manos) aayann ovpnd inn sad sms oy INNNYD PIX AY pW InN 
py po woson pap myn ovpadnm omvann osmas in aby awe 
yn ym ADIN AIM ADS AMINA Fy OIDM DNA ODN 
moI3 ND TowM nowy war jain Spy now 9} myps ymax mp 
:mDwIT ANT awe mown by ony op» b> 

Don §3DSN INS nD oT ins) AAA oNdmady wd ey Sm DY An 
nods anywnd ony mynn no Sx myn spr vd inde § mays pan 
ons ombds now xim mnynn sya tao 1d mwydy mandy mioad yard 
YPN MIIPN Sy osoy ssa osyan wr Id pons Sav wor oy pyr 
ymanp> *5ap pom wns Ay wsapdS wy ooyn b5) ne mp ydy 
NT WM NAY. AwyY AYP. WED YMON AD mm Im aa Srp boy 
soo ney pa xd ww mda ow eos ox map Snnaw ayer mows 


1 K. for N. nya». 2 On margin. * Margin, 59 xR). 
* K. for N. “5D. 


wDnY “AD 14 


pdynnd poem nyn nd yam oo wea ax pram asad wy ndwad 
mpps> mony mpand mid>pa inwxd aw ane inden odwm spy on 
moon mds xem mon my > yw mywpnd paps ney myp mds say 
mbyx nnd 3 mvond absw oney abyad many mind ad yon ost myn 
9992) Snton xapyr ansm oneyo xb oad ann cnyow pdypd ow 
yn Syn 4S ansaa S$anad noon 5x inva in’ap spas onsay osn 
mx nnd 23 AMpnd onaney tyam ven 2a~am AAS po pox snd NIP 
minnyn 9 yo sy myy ano Seon ay nnd 95 Amy aw o> ona 
moon 35 ona wrpy nby nany imady abapn $5 pow abana iw dwnws 
syn pyp xin nddsion nbom ony nose Ay mma 4 tne Seon 4 93 
mw FAddond snsy oy cam ost abawa mins nw PID 48 
:mda py nna Ima pnw 

mw odmon ain oy: nv 593 92 ODD ND Pr MODY > 
WYO] JIT) SNA Dyn) pan wo! 7D OMMyy oa ISsa TeAya DDD 
man) ons opp odd & mya fons Sia poy dsoon 4) oorby 
ny oopo manna bx opin odd mpow mina mona py 2IN3 
Ay AND) aM pYoyyo onp> asm) A Oppo ordpd Anam 
pose) payyo ndvann syn. ayoyyny ny ony oad ons oxad 
Sy onyn tn 55 pow sna wp TowM DDI Ia IN mbar 
MNNAD ID yD) OMAN was. wnyII WwW oon wd wom py DIN 
nan o'onn xdad wpa mnan onmwnad imode. ane nyt S505 pin 
mnay xd mann oon 55 by ond spyyw onpyys ovpyndy Saxnd sywn 
pomin oe) Sno ADD oN YfyInna way Sym on say 
ody) od>p minnyny oD) oy SmapAD ods) o'van nysony 
pow) ovo Zownd on omsaw oy dps oman Sy mys 
ppm oo amino mynd monn oSmn owas Jwm ppm Dot 
DY) PPI WW DON NINA DYOINM ONIN OVwI ODD A Onsnd 
point sayy mands: pd onbdwa intm oben ona anos) op 
pwxid pon CaN DY DNWNIN DID OY OMNI an MAY °35 
sD NINN) 

oxy] NIM TAWA wend FAM. pn May oI NNN wR wR oN 
ypaa Sapa 55x wndy ya Sinn yo nop ova ini) wy} Nas aya 


1 MS. ‘n>on. 2 K, for N. psn. 3 K, for N. ndysond. 
* MS. pin). 5 MS. ny DD). 6 N. non. 7 N. for 
MS. pyyind; K. oynd. ® So MS. 


13 yonyY “AD 


ma ontS myyn amy mpm sina maw 4 aay mn onns pyD 
mnaand nist awe yows inva bys aw omy ons maa ado Sp yo 
som mp onminx monsn apo Sw amynd mini abyody nnxn nmoippp 
omar modi awpm amand psn sim updoso oma ney ey in dapy 
yo ON > owoNA nya yn oS ows Poms at dn mpd) mds abn 
mx pom anwxd sass antad pon sbm omy abds swe omy 
mp mpyrn ino dy aa anay advSn 55 wx pax now Ton WD 
onvad s5y) mynapne onw3 AM IAAP) MyapA maa wd spas anny 
snd) oom poss awEX oven ana oniwnd ods 7Sn moaw 
sy orm don baa yy ar osy dS an oSn ay onan obxw ansas 
pypra ino Sy waswy wodm voy Sox indy Sxy wa aw anyn 
mvp spony 35S) omy omy wpyy ndSm 5a) inna ny ineRye inwY 
nows ombs may te ymax bye pnyapa ins apy w2dA paar wp 
swe 2ynapa ons odin pod pow sos ood sows oon} on nwDI 
my wax Don. Sey owy NI DYNI) WYN Tapa Fps.a ‘> Onp ins 
px sp yp xd) now wwe sapn by dm ons 095 ody maya aden 
bay onpy aw inva by mpay 4) apy oDNDD man we now NDxDD 
aypn mdvand maw wn awn ond aba pnd ma ys awe nwynn 
sep man awppo omnmn 5x5 

NP) ANYDD) AW NT AND ED AMA IND MAY 4d mmm na 
ayant xd poss nad my mas am apna ngnN2 Asano myn) Aw 
mata nowy anwaoondsen mos anpdS now maw op Sow ana 
xd nyo oS ims Os ADD ND) IN) AD AWN ond AMS Pwd 
ME’DI) AID ASAI LPH WwW AND WIND ANT ON AINA TMK 
Swayl mpayd) nyt Apna) Aya2 An) Adpa sw Aw. NDI 
maw mA 5513 mw! fy ANA AIYDD) OYpIna Ndwon powa Ada 

Sbinb os mya SSannd ums b$n5 soy maw 4 bd ome aim 
pmnnd Sx pd pnd monn 5$a5 meen mesp 5555 mie minawin 
nody prnnd many sand moy mwa pndnnd sw ed5ya yond annra 
pdidyna stnd pyna 99 5x5 pywdy noady poms ansan poo isp napd 
Dywyy onsa opmw pwd ppix spyd opin myoa oda ynaw~and 
soon Sy mas oon by why stad omy mona oy ps pid 

ony maxdo 1S meyd mony sms pdms yd) ay ayer jo ona 


1SoMS.  ?SoMS.(N.199p5). = * MS. o5"03. * K, here 
adds, nana mwxd 15 mon. °K, for N. 5x. 


OM) “BD 12 


xd op snawmn ambs oad odys xd gon sat $5 nba 55 by pe bx 
yp xa Sen ondan cabs: any mwy snaw2 tnsyer tndonon n'y ps 
Ss) oonson py xo Nw naw Sy onan onywn nds smayS mypr inden 
prays Ann bs goon Pp owyn taxn Ss on ap Yn 1D Onda ANAS 
mmm pion Saas syd xo ndor pap) pon nto yep Sy say 
Myw your NARA nw Mpyyd “oy inn omy Sarpy »onnd ndy|n 
POW NDI TYAS) Dw!) TMD JNwWoN  soyd 

nanan addr sy amsapa nody: mabdm mbvana pn monn awn 
% sos yon 55 pyd oxsp pany yon dap 9$n spaay Ansn Nb 
may snara xd oxi omyap pana, tenayps avn stbwnrw sno. yt an 
qp2 Nonny mney 2qoaynd Soy om Sax oneyy nosy snow pp) onawn 
sim opm map why 9 gna oypwa pox vad oyaya sonny po 
Py YIM pms wDpr ono Tnx evan Nd andy oradydy py pons 
mand nes ond moive way Syon ann Sx5 ana nw oom on 
saanoy yw syd ¢ndpy any Fond sin ny Som 

wya Swow sda snans mbyod nypp swsx onneny mwyon aNas 
poy syn sun mpyym bpd oxy? oym 55 Apnd eyo os an pana 
myoNnd NN Twn mwNT pO N¥N Ox xd IND yD YSyD poAM ppp 
yonndy wnw> Por wes Sy on > wend AD Nim Aw AMD TyN 
ob wm ONIN NN. pI IMNyDy OMIA mx apn ny wand 
sop) Anaya ‘Ss mnsyy pndya min joy pnmp> Soman wo pny 
ympond Smnn omy) oon BD Dy ODD JIDYN oN SAMayd 
porn maa yond mwy por poy sw pt pypy oniand marae) pan 
oy 553 ydoxnr nny wy aw ds Ss wy tiny one Tory Ape wow 
mw > mxdo sy noyya wan dwo wap sind an wd ony voy yea 
Soxpy any x Nan OMAN 13% Dy mimyy ops ov Jaya) ADyN 
95 93 psy xam 75S sos mop nn nab am Sox wy “nn gin 
snmav ox omdyn yo InN ON) OYwNT yo MN ANS 1d ADy Mons 
Syma myn od psy oma Sua we px may NM apy aD om wow 
ompd anay nwoy oy seam yon onwsa tad ox o> onnawn 295 xby 
Som on ans omy xyon xd oynnw onan ody 75 95 sow ner 
ombsm wna omdyn vs ms np xd) on xd wpa onoxn maa wd 
SYMAIND WEI mami ynixyn 55 Sy o> sp ymony 995 Sonn» 


1K. for N.‘naypa. 2 K. for N.jnnynd; MS. qnaynd.  * MS. nod. 
‘ K. for N. nov. 5 K. for N. ponvon. é B. for MS. mnyyd. 
7 MS. ny. Sk ywpo: * N. and K. for MS. *. 


11 WDM “ED 


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smn swe ondsn bs nbn 

sy NW mM Tand swe awyen jp om mw cpDNA 
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sim adda way qumwa ymiaxd aysn aden owx inp oNn py 
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mx xp indpna ox yoy DIN npyy yown ova Id nbn ane 
:yndmin 


+ Suggestion of B. 2 Nod. * MS. jAN). * On 
margin. * Indistinct in MS. ® MS. yn37"9). 


WDM “DD 10 


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xy Joon po) aa py ns) WwW APA Rn AMD on naw dy wr 
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aypnad mavepn yd>) xb) andy pn moa own ann worm vband ayoxn 
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mos anat 200 See ynxn aoe ony ynwpr 7d waxy qndsw nn baw 
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357 NIN NI DOM wowny ww paNa ox °D pyna xd DDN 
youn Sana invad ym ann woxa swe mdron $x amon bs nnows 
nidwd rawaw yyy ama aways ayyd naw yma vbynay mina anya 
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9 WDM “BD 


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yarn 55) py ines n ovSsyow do pp mn oN232 DDT OMT 
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MED NYO PANT min ANI. OnDy Noy mara pon wn boy pp 
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% owysoy poms ondap memsps nawm onaw omady onopy snynay onsda 
8S Sew wep sSyanr vod npys 


—_— 


a 7 omoiby. * No omission indicated in MS. (N., something 
missing, perhaps inpna > 7.) ’ So MS. ‘ K. for N. xp. 
5 K. for MS. prynd. = ® MS. yon. 


pom “AD 8 


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sombdyy spdiydr ndyd one bx ow a 


1 So on margin by later hand. 2 B. for N. jo”. * K. for N. 
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Pe, pom “BD 


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symn 55 py 

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1 K., 3 03) (MS. }2105)). * Pointed in MS, yeY2P3, > On 
margin by later hand; erased in MS. 


“On “DD 6 


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nowy yn ndyws wnnana mwyw no wow inpsna ‘yn ond ann 
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ay) AKI 83D OW WITT IyoN sy wow omdym omyund 


1 MS. DW3N7 INS. 2 oui > B. for N. p33 Sy (MS. “)). 
‘ Quotation from a poem of R. Silano. 5 MS. jon. * Injured. 
7K. for N. myyn03. ° On margin by later hand; erased in original. 
* K, for MS, 5950. 


5 Nom “PD 


YOWD DONA NIN ND NIT AAD AIA oymw noNDd ND AMI sDdD 
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MIN On YMOX 493 DOA DNS DYDwIA OF OF DN) ONw OF 
miny Syswe nds 555 yy Sx say omw Seon ay maw 4 »moKN 
poxdon Jays opdony oyyo. DDD AW) DY naw) DAW 
py Inn) AyD InDIM) yap ow Inaw yops om vay odon wSy bb 
nn) pA Nw) ON NYA OMT NpDaN) DIN ANIA Dw ays 
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rims aw pox 

nwyon pom woos senor py yee Sy say ney poss ina ‘ona 
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sna neat nay 553 ney am oye oD Ow Aw DIP pONa 
Wo ShN om wap ayn dD Ay wt a pon news & pys npsn 
oma owen map wy mbyS mn Ss ompon pp mbays own 
WNIT JD) DYIDIND WNT WR ODN OD 8eyNID Dwr ADM 


1 Added by K.; no indication of injury or omission in MS, 
? K. for N. pa. ° B. for text j3'n. * MS. nn. ° MS. nn. 
6 MS. my. 7 K, and N. for text 4393). ® K., for OFAN) DwWoINA. 


yom “PD 4 


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snot. mas inwyd> yawn ims. init Adm ams NYT yim 
rosa ws payed inawy sayy maw nav mint yards 

ayy insda wr232 nn mep mmy meyds mimd pan nxt canst 
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5655 an qoaw Sdann Sy aw pyy Syma Sipay pyr i andday onnn xd) 
sey onan bx san ways uswady weed Snr Sand bi andy 
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savandy } yeyd apy opywyS qeaya aim qoxn pba, naw qosyd mpm 
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my omdy ow swe 55 pnd bap om ywe ostayy ywen sdapn ox 
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swiped mwyen 55 

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9B ONT ANA won Pon oar AND in»dy oyp Soay aby ora 
byw sesdwn pypay insan Syar Sand) ansina spoyd and nye oy 
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mona oe 8S nso peas eS ox pwpan tp pode ony omy 
WN DY ODD ANY ow Mw. AMD py va ANOwa o[a]odn 
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yyony 7 oy 82v 122 Jenn TnaA ond sox amd oan onby naw 
aw. Sndann yon mwa yeys pips Sna5 ay wnnw* xno yan 
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moapw yoyr mo2d Snnn awn oaday aep ww aw jer aw ow 
xa pds ads nape yo opr yodsyn pam yds pa pyons 4) m3 43 
TV ANY! APA. wp As Ayr ond anya yawn To mdya 


1 So MS. 2 Injured. § Injured ; 1 visible. * So margin; 
text = 5x5. © MS. ymb aem. = 8 MS.onbnnn A. 7 MS. 
pdm. : 


3 Yon “BD 


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wow syd Ssemp» temmw Sx nsa nnnn Soon 3 wa mens ppiyn 
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mays ms aw own omdy nd$ nn yaw omy ma by omy p43 
nnyd yoyn oma @Aadn syond sym maws maw2a) maNN Ann 
[WN Iw JI MA apr yaNd wD som yD WN DONA My wD do 


1 K. for N. yeas. ? MS. injured. °* MS.nyn. * MS. os3. 
‘ K.and B. for N..19. = ° K. for N. pynd. —7_-‘MS. end of line 4%, 
beginning of next injured. ® MS. injured; reading suggested by K. 
° K. for N.ywyyn. ™% MS.sn>.  ™ K. and B, for N. mpbyn. 


pom 75D 

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sm> moma Sax mis mad medea pro meesind wasp mind Smbya 
poy mia Pab[ndnjay aw Ayaay AN. ANN Jaw. AM pwd AnyD 
vows) yninawin spr wmdysa Apind wmwda|s ‘[ra_]> wna pind maww 
b5 yng asdary ymdwoo pin ym ony ymbvan ayy yn 
ban poo inoana yas mY omy nD od pid mea ON pA Ina 
NII DD OM OPIN »yp 593 indwynd orpmwa xd Fray’ wr aman 
INYIAI MMwN My wn’xwo PIP YW on nowy pdrany adn on 
Jaan) ana  xwany dyn indwoo mmpo 552 anian ona Sa 
rimsdn aD pe DY 

smo oddyp syst odyap aoa swe oda ano mbna axes 
Syey ody) dena awe odoin oy oan oder ymax mdaw ws 
max mon omsyn yon wed odoyy ose oder oy odin 
mn ooveadss inp on) ms) oD ny Soa onyD pw mx DDMpA 
oma 9995) oa 295) O05 oy 523 AN OD IpA ymaNd ovr 5o2 
ymiaxo mayo #[ J maswe ppwa nadns atpd nays joa fou ]nen 
Ifo vd]yn py swe Abn oy pwxd py a2 [pw ]p oma na wai 


* Abbreviation for » nyo iy yo) Sonn » mots. —!« Injured. 
2SoMS. °*MS.wp2. ‘3B. for MS. o>, °* Injured; K., mo. 


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